spillshttp://www.desmogblog.com/taxonomy/term/11834/all
enEnvironmental Group Launches Lawsuit Against Federal Government Over Pipeline Safety Planninghttp://www.desmogblog.com/2015/07/30/environmental-group-launches-lawsuit-against-federal-government-over-pipeline-safety-planning
<div class="field field-name-field-bimage field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/styles/blog_teaser/public/blogimages/shutterstock_222998059.jpg?itok=h3b4Lobo" width="200" height="133" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>One of the country's largest environmental groups has accused the federal government of failing to follow pipeline safety planning laws, alleging that for more than two decades the Department of Transportation (<span class="caps">DOT</span>) has illegally allowed companies to operate oil pipelines that cross waterways without adequate preparation for spills and other disasters.</p>
<p>The National Wildlife Federation, which filed a notice of its intent to sue on Tuesday, accused the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (<span class="caps">PHMSA</span>), part of the <span class="caps">DOT</span>, of failing to properly enforce the Oil Pollution Act, enacted by Congress in the wake of the Exxon Valdez spill.</p>
<p>“Due to the agency’s decades-long oversight failures, every <span class="caps">U.S.</span> oil pipeline that intersects a navigable water is operating illegally,” the <span class="caps">NWF</span> wrote in a statement announcing the filing.</p>
<!--break-->
<p>On paper, the Oil Pollution Act prohibits the transportation of oil through pipelines on land or in the water, unless oil pipeline owners or operators receive government approval that they have safety plans that are adequate to respond to a worst-case oil spill, according to the <span class="caps">NWF</span>. But the requirements lawmakers enacted were never put into place, the group said.</p>
<p>“There are no regulations at all — that's the problem,” <span class="caps">NWF</span> attorney Neil Kagan <a href="http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2015/07/nwf_pipeline_lawsuit.html">told</a> <span class="caps">ML</span>ive. “The department was supposed to issue them but it never did.”</p>
<p>These regulations would be important in part because pipelines pass through rivers and streams in thousands of places across the country, the <span class="caps">NWF</span> said. “<span class="caps">DOT</span>'s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration 'determined that hazardous liquid pipelines cross inland bodies of water at 18,136 locations' in the United States. The Keystone <span class="caps">XL</span> oil pipeline alone would cross nearly 2,000 rivers, streams and reservoirs in Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska,” the group wrote. “This is cause for serious concern.”</p>
<p>Most of oil, gasoline and other fuel transported in the <span class="caps">U.S.</span> travels via an aging pipeline network. Half of America's hazardous liquids pipelines were built in the 1970's, federal data shows. For the past five years that network has been under unprecedented strain, as oil production in the <span class="caps">US</span> rose nearly two thirds and operators complained vigorously that pipeline shortages were creating backlogs for the exploration and production industry and old pipelines were pressed into new service. So the risk of pipeline ruptures is ever-present.</p>
<p>And spills become more difficult to clean up and more likely to affect drinking water supplies when they happen in water bodies.</p>
<p>In a 12-page letter, an attorney for <span class="caps">NWF</span> pointed to a series of accidents including a spill in the Yellowstone River in January that spilled up to 50,400 gallons of crude oil into the iconic waterway, contaminating drinking water and sickening residents.</p>
<p>That same day, state and local water officials in Arkansas objected to a proposed $5 million settlement between the federal government and Exxon Mobil over the rupture of the Pegasus pipeline in March 2013, which made headlines after over 100,000 gallons of dilbit spilled into the town of Mayflower and Lake Conway. “The proposed consent decree does nothing to protect the vital water resources within the State of Arkansas from harm when the next segment of the Pegasus pipeline ruptures,” Central Arkansas Water, a local water utility, <a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/news/28072015/exxon-mobil-deal-mayflower-arkansas-pipeline-oil-spill-leaves-water-vulnerable-groups-warn-tar-sands-diblit">wrote</a>.</p>
<p>Nationwide, the pipeline industry averages at least 1.6 incidents per day, for a total of 2,452 leaks, explosions, spills and other large or small mishaps between January 1, 2010 and March 3, 2014, <a href="http://www.fractracker.org/2014/04/pipeline-incidents/">according to</a> the FracTracker Alliance, which <a href="http://www.fractracker.org/2013/04/us-pipelines-average-incidents-are-a-daily-occurrence/">analyzed data</a> from <span class="caps">PHMSA</span>.</p>
<p><span class="dquo">“</span>The oil pipeline industry’s track record of spills, accidents, and disasters underscore the need for iron-clad protections,” said Mike Shriberg, regional executive director of the National Wildlife Federation’s Great Lakes Regional Center.</p>
<p>The <span class="caps">NWF</span>'s complaint largely focused on two buried pipelines that connect Lake Michigan to Lake Huron via the Straits of Mackinac, carrying up to 22.7 million gallons of crude oil or natural gas liquids a day.</p>
<p>But the notice filed today also carries national significance. “It’s important to note that this is the first legal action in the effort to protect the Great Lakes from oil pipeline disasters, but it has implications for any pipeline intersecting inland navigable waterways in the United States – from the Kalamazoo River to the Missouri River to the Red River to the Big Sioux River – all of which, by the way, have had oil spills,” Shriberg added.</p>
<p>Enbridge, which is the company that owns and operates the pipelines in the Straits of Mackinac, told the Associated Press that it had provided federal regulators with emergency response plans. “Enbridge has plans for each operating region, as well as a specific plan for the Straits,” Spokesman Michael Barnes <a href="http://http://newsok.com/group-starts-process-to-sue-us-agency-over-pipeline-plans/article/feed/868215">told the <span class="caps">AP</span></a>. “In addition, we routinely conduct drills with both state and federal agencies to ensure those plans are current and effective. We take safety seriously.”</p>
<p>But the agency that <span class="caps">NWF</span> argues should be responsible for approving those safety plans has struggled to keep up with the shale drilling rush and the surge in North American oil production.</p>
<p>An April <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/the-little-pipeline-agency-that-couldnt-117147.html#ixzz3hEpCK2BZ">investigation </a>by Politico revealed a litany of problems with <span class="caps">PHMSA</span>.</p>
<p>“The picture that emerges is of an agency that lacks the manpower to inspect the nation’s 2.6 million miles of oil and gas lines, that grants the industry it regulates significant power to influence the rule-making process, and that has stubbornly failed to take a more aggressive regulatory role, even when ordered by Congress to do so,” Politico <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/the-little-pipeline-agency-that-couldnt-117147.html#ixzz3hEpCK2BZ">wrote</a>, adding that the agency employed one inspector for every 5,830 miles of pipeline nationwide and routinely slashed fines with little explanation.</p>
<p>This newest complaint may be another example of the agency's lax enforcement of existing law, environmentalist argue.</p>
<p><span class="dquo">“</span>The federal government needs to do its job and protect our communities, fish, and wildlife from the next oil spill disaster,” said <span class="caps">NWF</span>'s Shriberg.<br /> </p>
<p><span style="font-size:11px;"><em>Photo Credit: <a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-222998059/stock-photo-spilled-oil-around-the-oil-pipeline.html?src=79hFpfSlZgKVua74R5OhNA-1-1">Spilled oil around the oil pipeline</a>, via Shutterstock.</em></span></p>
</div></div></div><!-- iCopyright Horizontal Tag -->
<div class="icopyright-article-tools-horizontal icopyright-article-tools-left">
<script type="text/javascript">
var icx_publication_id = 14813;
var icx_content_id = '9707';
</script>
<script type="text/javascript"
src="http://license.icopyright.net/rights/js/horz-toolbar.js"></script>
<noscript>
<a class="icopyright-article-tools-noscript"
href="http://license.icopyright.net/3.14813?icx_id=9707"
target="_blank"
title="Main menu of all reuse options">
<img height="25" width="27" border="0" align="bottom"
alt="[Reuse options]"
src="http://license.icopyright.net/images/icopy-w.png"/>
Click here for reuse options!
</a>
</noscript>
</div>
<!-- iCopyright Tag -->
<div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-14 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6577">pipelines</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6834">Safety</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/21317">planning</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/21318">Nation Wildlife Federation</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/21319">Department of Transporation</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6797">PHMSA</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6799">Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/21320">Oil Pollution Act</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6445">regulations</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/4389">Enbridge</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/1980">Michigan</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/21321">waters of the United States</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/21322">drinking water supplies</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11834">spills</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/21323">emergencies</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/21324">ruptures</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14914">leaks</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/21325">riverbeds</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/21326">steams</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/21327">worst case scenario</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7642">oversight</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/21328">illegally</a></div></div></div>Thu, 30 Jul 2015 10:58:00 +0000Sharon Kelly9707 at http://www.desmogblog.comEPA's New Fracking Study: A Close Look at the Numbers Buried in the Fine Printhttp://www.desmogblog.com/2015/06/25/epa-fracking-study-close-look-numbers-fine-print-details
<div class="field field-name-field-bimage field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/styles/blog_teaser/public/blogimages/shutterstock_269125325.jpg?itok=nJX2zs0s" width="200" height="138" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>When <span class="caps">EPA</span>’s long-awaited draft assessment on fracking and drinking water supplies was released, the oil and gas industry <a href="http://energyindepth.org/national/long-awaited-epa-study-finds-fracking-has-not-led-to-widespread-water-contamination/">triumphantly focused</a> on a headline-making sentence: “We did not find evidence of widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources in the United States.”</p>
<p>But for fracking’s backers, a sense of victory may prove to be fleeting.</p>
<p><span class="caps">EPA</span>’s <a href="http://cfpub.epa.gov/ncea/hfstudy/recordisplay.cfm?deid=244651">draft assessment </a>made one thing clear: fracking has repeatedly contaminated drinking water supplies (a fact that the industry has long aggressively denied).</p>
<!--break-->
<p>Indeed, the federal government’s recognition that fracking can contaminate drinking water supplies may prove to have opened the floodgates, especially since <span class="caps">EPA</span> called attention to major gaps in the official record, due in part to <a href="http://ecowatch.com/2013/08/05/fracking-gag-orders-buy-victims-silence/">gag orders</a> for landowners who settle contamination claims and in part because there simply hasn’t been enough testing to know how widespread problems have become.</p>
<p>And although it’s been less than a month since <span class="caps">EPA</span>’s draft assessment was released, the evidence on fracking’s impacts has continued to roll in.</p>
<p>A <a href="http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acs.est.5b01526">study</a> in Texas’ Barnett shale found high levels of pollutants – volatile organic compounds, heavy metals, and known carcinogens – in many people’s drinking water, based on testing from over 500 water wells. The contaminants found were associated with the shale drilling industry, but the researchers cautioned it was too soon to say whether the industry actually caused the contamination.</p>
<p>But the association was strong, the researchers said. “In the counties where there is more unconventional oil and gas development, the chemicals are worse,” lead researcher Zachariah Hildenbrand <a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/news/19062015/near-fracking-center-drinking-water-has-more-chemicals-and-carcinogens-barnett-shale-texas-epa-oil-gas">told</a> Inside Climate News. “They're in water in higher concentrations and more prevalent among the wells. As you get away from the drilling, water quality gets better. There's no doubt about it.”</p>
<p>Those who might have hoped that <span class="caps">EPA</span>’s national study would help resolve questions swirling around fracking were largely disappointed, saying that <span class="caps">EPA</span>’s new draft assessment is <a href="http://fusion.net/story/144839/the-epas-study-tells-us-nothing-new-about-fracking-in-america/">largely a review</a> of the current literature. <span class="caps">EPA</span> also heavily relied on data that was self-reported by drillers to FracFocus or to various states, leaving open questions about whether the accident rates they found are in fact under-stated.</p>
<p>Historically, the executive summary from <span class="caps">EPA</span>’s assessments on the oil and gas industry has provided a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/04/us/04gas.html?ref=drillingdown">much rosier picture</a> than the details included in the body of the report. And a close look at <span class="caps">EPA</span>’s new draft assessment reveals some striking results that haven't made headlines.</p>
<p><span class="caps">EPA</span> couldn’t say with certainty how many fracked wells there are in the <span class="caps">US</span>, nor could it say how much wastewater was produced from fracking. They could say that overall, the oil and gas industry is producing billions of gallons of wastewater a day – hundreds of billions of gallons per year – but couldn’t say how much of that was tied to fracking.</p>
<p>Roughly a third of America’s newly fracked wells that <span class="caps">EPA</span> could find were drilled in densely populated areas – either metropolitan areas or what the <span class="caps">EPA</span> calls “micropolitan” centers, where over ten thousand people live close together (p. 109).</p>
<p>Wells have been fracked as little as 0.01 miles away from a public drinking water supply, which supplies homes that do not use well water (p. 111) But despite how close fracking is to people’s homes and public drinking water supplies, the <span class="caps">EPA</span> admitted it knows shockingly little about how risky the chemicals used are to human health (p. 38).</p>
<p>Meanwhile, accidents keep on happening, both above-ground and under, by the hundreds or thousands. One in a dozen spills by drillers wasn't contained before it hit drinking water sources – and the spills that hit water supplies tended to be much larger spills than those that didn’t (p. 38). Although gas wells are generally depicted as having numerous layers of concrete and steel casings to prevent the gas, wastewater and chemicals inside the well from interacting with the environment outside it, two thirds of wells had no cement along some portions of their bores (p. 275), an <span class="caps">EPA</span> review found. And conditions underground, which can leave wells under high pressure, high temperatures or in “corrosive environments” sometimes caused well casings to have “life expectancies” that run out in under a decade (p. 281) – but the oil and gas industry has told investors that shale wells are expected to keep pumping for <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/us/26gas.html">30 years or more</a>.</p>
<p>Here’s a look at more of the evidence that’s buried in the fine print on the <span class="caps">EPA</span>’s study.</p>
<p>First and foremost, fracked wells can contaminate underground drinking water supplies and there are multiple documented cases where that has occurred. The <span class="caps">EPA</span>’s assessment, for example, concluded that in Pennsylvania, “in some cases, the methane [found in drinking water wells] appears to have originated from deeper layers such as those where the Marcellus Shale is found.” The agency also cited cases of water contamination tied to the Vermejo coalbeds in Colorado’s Raton basin. (See p. 284-5 of the report). </p>
<p>In fact, at the five sites <span class="caps">EPA</span> selected for its retrospective studies, they <a href="http://www2.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-06/documents/final_retro_case_study_fact_sheet_6_03_508_km.pdf">found problems </a>everywhere and most of the time, the only available explanation was fracking. An aquifer was contaminated with wastewater and tert-butyl alcohol in North Dakota and <span class="caps">EPA</span> concluded that the only possible cause was a blow-out during fracking; in Northeastern <span class="caps">PA</span>, where gas is often naturally found in water supplies, 9 out of the 36 wells <span class="caps">EPA</span> analyzed were newly contaminated due to fracking activities (25%); salty groundwater contamination in Southwestern <span class="caps">PA</span> likely came from a fracking wastewater pit; in two of the drinking wells <span class="caps">EPA</span> studied in Wise County, <span class="caps">TX</span>, the only explanation consistent with the <span class="caps">EPA</span> found contamination was brines from fracked rock layers and a third drinking well may have also been similarly polluted; and in Raton Basin, <span class="caps">CO</span>, <span class="caps">EPA</span> found pollution but couldn’t “definitively” link it to the coalbed fracking done in the area.</p>
<p>The agency also cited examples of lesser-known problems elsewhere in the <span class="caps">US</span>. For example, “[i]n Bainbridge, Ohio, inadequately cemented casing in a hydraulically fractured well contributed to the buildup of natural gas and high pressures along the outside of a production well,” <span class="caps">EPA</span> said (p. 40-41). “This ultimately resulted in movement of natural gas into local drinking water aquifers.”</p>
<p>At least 12.2 million people live or drink water from within a mile of a fracked well, but that is almost certainly an under-count because <span class="caps">EPA</span> couldn’t locate all the wells that were fracked. (p. 31-32; 116) Tens of thousands of new wells are drilled and fracked every year, <span class="caps">EPA</span> found, and half of the states in the country have now been fracked. So even if problems occur a small percent of the time, vast numbers of individual people could be impacted.</p>
<p>And companies have been allowed to frack using over a thousand different chemicals nationwide even though scientists have a very poor understanding of the ways that they affect people (p. 176). Little is known about the human health effects for the vast majority of the chemicals used in fracking, a problem that <span class="caps">EPA</span> labeled “a significant data gap for hazard identification.” The risks of long-term exposure were not know for 92% of the chemicals used during fracking (p. 38). Much also remains unknown about the health risks associated with 38-48 percent of the naturally-occurring materials that get mixed in with injected fluids underground, though more is known about these than the chemicals deliberately used by drillers.</p>
<p>The few chemicals whose health risks have been studied can have severe impacts on people's bodies, causing cancer, kidney, brain and liver problems, and pose harm to developing fetuses and babies (though <span class="caps">EPA</span> cautioned that so little is known about the more commonly used chemicals that it wasn't clear what risks an average well might pose) (p. 39).</p>
<p>This means that people whose health is harmed could have a hard time tying their ailments to fracking in court, because the science has lagged so far behind. It also makes it hard for regulators to know what chemicals are riskier or how best to prevent people from getting sick.</p>
<p>Although the oil and gas industry often focuses on “best practices” in describing how the modern shale rush has used emerging technology, even basic precautions are not routinely taken. Roughly 3 percent of fracked wells in one part of North Dakota – in other words, hundreds of wells per year – were deliberately built short on the well casings that are designed to protect drinking water supplies. And without enough casing, the risk of contamination spikes 1,000- fold, <span class="caps">EPA</span> noted (p. 39).</p>
<p>Much has been made of the long distances that fracking chemicals would have to travel to move from shale layers buried sometimes thousands of feet below the surface to the depths that people’s drinking water wells reach. But it turns out that twenty percent of fracked wells are considered “shallow,” which means that fracking happens much closer to drinking water supplies, <span class="caps">EPA</span> found (p. 41).</p>
<p>And, in a practice that has gotten very little attention, drilling companies are sometimes deliberately fracking directly into drinking water supplies. “The practice of injecting fracturing fluids into a formation that also contains a drinking water resource directly affects the quality of that water, since some of the fluid likely remains in the formation following hydraulic fracturing,” <span class="caps">EPA</span> wrote. “Hydraulic fracturing in a drinking water resource is a concern in the short-term (should there be people currently using these zones as a drinking water supply) and the long-term (if drought or other conditions necessitate the future use of these zones for drinking water” (p. 41).</p>
<p>Of course, it’s not just problems underground that cause contamination.</p>
<p>No one knows how much wastewater from fracking is produced nationwide, <span class="caps">EPA</span> reported, because states don’t consistently track the industry’s waste. This means there is no reliable way of knowing what percentage of wastewater winds up injected, dumped, spilled, deliberately evaporated in evaporation ponds, sent to treatment plants, sprayed on roads, or otherwise handled or mishandled. The amount of wastewater from a given well can be millions of gallons – sometimes even more than companies pumped in, or sometimes up to 90 percent of what’s inject remains below ground, <span class="caps">EPA</span> said.</p>
<p>Sewage treatment plants cannot handle fracking wastewater, and there is no evidence proving that commercial wastewater treatment plants can handle it either (p. 46).<br /><br />
Hundreds or thousands of chemical or wastewater spills can be expected annually, and an average spill is over 400 gallons (picture eight 50-gallon drums), <span class="caps">EPA</span> found, despite limited reporting. About one in ten spills reached surface waters, and nearly two thirds soaked into the ground. “These spills tended to be of greater volume than spills that did not reach a water body,” <span class="caps">EPA</span> noted (p.45).</p>
<p>Unlined wastewater storage pits can create “plumes” in underground water supplies, when fluids seep down through the soil into aquifers, and those plumes can create problems for a very long time and even reach nearby lakes, rivers or streams, <span class="caps">EPA</span> reported (p. 45).</p>
<p>And as droughts extend across much of the U.S., the sheer amount of water consumed by fracking – often permanently removed from the water cycle – also impacts America’s drinking water supplies. In some counties, fracking consumes more than half of all the water that is used annually, based on the industry's own self-reporting, <span class="caps">EPA</span> noted (p. 35).<br />
Problems underground have also dogged the fracking industry, and evidence is growing despite the complex and expensive technical problems that confront investigators into specific incidents.</p>
<p>Modern fracking techniques, where <a href="http://http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/another-record-broken-by-the-oil-industry/2748">10 or more</a> wells are drilled from the same pad, may increase the risks of groundwater contamination, <span class="caps">EPA</span> found. In some parts of Oklahoma, fractures from two different wells accidentally crossed each other nearly half of the time. When this happens, fluids pumped down into one well can erupt out of a different well, causing fracking-fluid spills at ground-level (p. 42).</p>
<p>These risks are especially high if one of the over 1 million wells that were drilled and abandoned “prior to a formal regulatory structure” turns out to have been nearby (but that's hard to anticipate because “the status and location of many of these wells are unknown” (p. 42).</p>
<p>About 1,380 wells over a decade old were fracked in 2009 and 2010, despite concerns that older wells were not tested to withstand modern fracking techniques. “The <span class="caps">EPA</span> estimated that 6% of 23,000 oil and gas production wells were drilled more than 10 years before being hydraulically fractured in 2009 or 2010. Although new wells can be designed to withstand the stresses associated with hydraulic fracturing operations, older wells may not have been built or tested to the same specifications and their reuse for this purpose could be of concern. Moreover, aging and use of the well can contribute to casing degradation, which can be accelerated by exposure to corrosive chemicals, such as hydrogen sulfide, carbonic acid, and brines.” (p. 41)</p>
<p>While all of this shows <span class="caps">EPA</span>'s baseline for talking about fracking's impacts, there are many reasons to believe that the agency's numbers represent just the tip of the iceberg. In its executive summary, <span class="caps">EPA</span> acknowledged that its numbers “may be an underestimate as a result of several factors,” citing a lack of available data (p. 50).</p>
<p><span class="caps">EPA</span>'s study also took a narrow approach and left out many issues related to fracking, including problems that emerge during drilling or constructing well pads (even at sites where fracking is necessary to get the well to begin producing oil and gas), the impacts of mining of sand used as proppant, and what happens to wells once they stop producing oil and gas and are abandoned. Early plans to study air emissions and other effects were also dropped.</p>
<p>And of course, since the assessment is only a draft, it is still open for public comment. Public meetings and teleconferences to discuss <span class="caps">EPA</span>'s findings are <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2015/06/05/2015-13674/notification-of-teleconferences-and-a-public-meeting-of-the-science-advisory-board-hydraulic">scheduled</a> for this fall.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:9px;">Photo Credit: <a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-269125325/stock-photo-paper-stack-paperwork.html?src=Y4E0JmNZpPRjgs1Y9EGY-A-1-21">Paper, Stack, Paperwork</a>, via Shutterstock.</span></p>
</div></div></div><!-- iCopyright Horizontal Tag -->
<div class="icopyright-article-tools-horizontal icopyright-article-tools-left">
<script type="text/javascript">
var icx_publication_id = 14813;
var icx_content_id = '9571';
</script>
<script type="text/javascript"
src="http://license.icopyright.net/rights/js/horz-toolbar.js"></script>
<noscript>
<a class="icopyright-article-tools-noscript"
href="http://license.icopyright.net/3.14813?icx_id=9571"
target="_blank"
title="Main menu of all reuse options">
<img height="25" width="27" border="0" align="bottom"
alt="[Reuse options]"
src="http://license.icopyright.net/images/icopy-w.png"/>
Click here for reuse options!
</a>
</noscript>
</div>
<!-- iCopyright Tag -->
<div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-14 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/epa">EPA</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5133">fracking</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/20224">national study</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5137">hydraulic fracturing</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6019">drinking water</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/21013">supplies</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/21014">number</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5565">shale gas</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7277">shale oil</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5421">contamination</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/2920">pollution</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/21015">migration</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15915">pits</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6843">wastewater</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14914">leaks</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11834">spills</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7112">brine</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11835">flowback</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/21016">casings</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/21017">gaps</a></div></div></div>Thu, 25 Jun 2015 11:58:00 +0000Sharon Kelly9571 at http://www.desmogblog.comCompany Presses Forward on Plans to Ship Fracking Wastewater via Barge in Ohio River, Drawing Objections from Localshttp://www.desmogblog.com/2015/02/19/company-presses-forward-plans-ship-fracking-wastewater-barge-ohio-river-drawing-objections-locals
<div class="field field-name-field-bimage field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/styles/blog_teaser/public/blogimages/shutterstock_236393875%20-%20barge.jpg?itok=vVAQBcUn" width="200" height="133" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>A major dispute is brewing over transporting wastewater from shale gas wells by barge in the Ohio River, the source of drinking water for millions of Americans.</p>
<p>On January 26, <a href="http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=219127&amp;p=irol-newsArticle&amp;ID=2010625">GreenHunter Water announced</a> that it had been granted approval by the <span class="caps">U.S.</span> Coast Guard to haul tens of thousands of barrels from its shipping terminal and 70,000-barrel wastewater storage facility on the Ohio River in New Matamoras, Ohio.</p>
<p>“The <span class="caps">U.S.</span> Coast Guard approval is a significant 'win' for both GreenHunter Resources and our valued clients,” Kirk Trosclair, Chief Operating Officer at GreenHunter Resources, Inc., <a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/news/greenhunter-resources-provides-operational-conference-230700249.html">said</a> in a statement announcing the Coast Guard's approval. “Our ability to transport disposal volumes via barge will significantly reduce our costs, improve our margins and allow us to pass along savings to our clients.”</p>
<p>Outraged environmental advocates immediately objected to the news.</p>
<p><span class="dquo">“</span>Despite the thousands of comments from residents along the Ohio River opposing the risk of allowing toxic, radioactive fracking waste to be barged along the Ohio River, the Coast Guard quietly approved the plan at the end of 2014,” <a href="http://http://www.ohio.com/blogs/drilling/ohio-utica-shale-1.291290/group-unhappy-with-federal-approval-of-ohio-river-barge-shipments-1.563913">said</a> Food <span class="amp">&amp;</span> Water Watch Ohio Organizer Alison Auciello.</p>
<p><span class="dquo">“</span>The Coast Guard is risking man-made earthquakes, drinking water contamination, leaks and spills. This approval compromises not only the health and safety of the millions who get their drinking water from the Ohio River but will increase the amount of toxic fracking waste that will be injected underground in Southeast Ohio.”</p>
<p>But the company's announcement was in fact made before the Coast Guard completed its review of the hazards of hauling shale gas wastewater via the nation's waterways – a process so controversial given the difficulty of controlling mid-river spills and the unique challenges of handling the radioactivity in Marcellus shale brine that proposed Coast Guard rules have drawn almost 70,000 public comments.</p>
<p>GreenHunter's move drew a sharp rebuke from Coast Guard officials. </p>
<!--break-->
<p><span class="dquo">“</span>The Coast Guard has not taken final agency action on GreenHunter’s 2012 request to transport shale gas extraction wastewater and has not classified this cargo for shipment,” the Coast Guard <a href="http://www.ohio.com/blogs/drilling/ohio-utica-shale-1.291290/coast-guard-statement-on-greenhunter-resources-barge-shipping-1.564533">said in a statement</a> responding to the announcement. “We are committed to ensuring proper research with regards to shale gas extraction wastewater maritime transportation before approving any request to transport shale gas extraction wastewater.”</p>
<p>So how can the company move forward with plans to ship wastewater in the Ohio River? The answer may come down to whether the waste the company hauls is classified as “shale gas extraction waste” or “oilfield waste.”</p>
<p>GreenHunter officials now say they consider their wastewater “oilfield waste.”</p>
<p>“We don't even know what the hell shale gas extraction waste is,” Kirk Trosclair, the company's chief operating officer, <a href="http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060013005">told</a> Environment <span class="amp">&amp;</span> Energy Publishing last week. “What we're trying to transport is oil field waste and residual waste, which is basically brine, saltwater.”</p>
<p>The company <a href="http://www.ohio.com/news/break-news/coast-guard-clarifies-texas-company-s-authority-to-ship-drilling-wastewater-via-barges-on-ohio-river-1.564717">told</a> the Ohio Beacon it had received a letter on October 2 from the Coast Guard stating it could ship “oilfield waste.”</p>
<p>Citing that authority, company officials said they intend to move forward with shipments.</p>
<p>“GreenHunter Water will continue to transport 'oilfield waste' until such time as the Coast Guard ultimately decides on the proper definition of 'shale gas extraction waste water' and the rules under which such waste water can be transported. Once these rules are finalized, GreenHunter will comply with these rules and regulations,” Mr. Trosclair <a href="http://www.theintelligencer.net/page/content.detail/id/624568/Radiation-Concerns-Coast-Guard.html">told</a> another local newspaper, the Wheeling News Register, last week.</p>
<p>But Coast Guard officials have warned that shipments plans may be premature. Federal regulations will require the company test fluids for radioactivity first.</p>
<p>“The Marcellus shale is known to have elevated levels of naturally occurring radioactive materials, particularly radium,” Cynthia Znati, lead chemical engineer for the Coast Guard's hazardous materials division, <a href="http://www.theintelligencer.net/page/content.detail/id/624568/Radiation-Concerns-Coast-Guard.html">told</a> the Wheeling News Register. “From our perspective, that is the main hazard.”</p>
<p>Mr. Trosclair did not respond to requests for comment from DeSmog.</p>
<p>It seems clear that the company intends to handle wastewater from the Marcellus shale industry. According to its Investor Relations page, GreenHunter Water offers wastewater disposal services for the shale gas industry, specifically catering to Marcellus shale drillers.</p>
<p>“GreenHunter Water is focused on water resource management in the oil and natural gas sector providing Oilfield Water Management Solutions™ to the unconventional shale oil and natural gas plays,” <a href="http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=219127&amp;p=irol-irhome">the site reads</a>. “Our operations in the Eagle Ford and Marcellus shale plays are positioned to meet the unique demands of water management needs of producers.”</p>
<p>The company's 2012 application to haul wastewater has been intensely debated in recent years.</p>
<p>In April 2013, the Coast Guard <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/03/us-usa-fracking-wastewater-idUSBRE93216L20130403">quietly sent</a> draft regulations for hauling shale waste to the White House Office of Management and Budget, following GreenHunter's request. </p>
<p>But when people living in the region caught wind of the plans, they flooded the Coast Guard with tens of thousands of public comments.</p>
<p>Organizers in Ohio objected to the plans not only based on the risks of spills and the danger that radioactive materials could collect in the barges themselves, but also because they feared that barging would open up the floodgates for disposing even more shale gas wastewater in Ohio, where disposal wells have caused earthquakes according to the <span class="caps">USGS</span>.</p>
<p>“It would increase the pace at which Ohio becomes the fracking waste dumping ground for other areas of the country - not real appealing,” Melissa English, the director of development at Ohio Citizen Action, <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/03/us-usa-fracking-wastewater-idUSBRE93216L20130403">told Reuters</a> at the time.</p>
<p>Today, the collapse of crude oil prices has left the barging industry under financial pressure, as many companies invested heavily in equipment to haul oil via river. Barge shipments of crude oil <a href="http://www.companiesandmarkets.com/News/Transportation/US-barge-transportation-market-to-decline-as-oil-production-forced-to-slow/NI10052">rose</a> from from roughly 4 million barrels in 2008 to 46.7 million barrels in 2013, a more than ten-fold increase over the span of five years.</p>
<p>But that boom may be dissipating, creating worries of a market bust. “<span class="caps">US</span> oil production has been the biggest driver of the <span class="caps">US</span> barge transportation market since the introduction of fracking saw domestic oil production boom since 2004 but it is also set to see the market decline as more efficient pipelines come online for oil transportation and production slows in response to the global oil crisis,” Companies and Markets.com <a href="http://www.companiesandmarkets.com/News/Transportation/US-barge-transportation-market-to-decline-as-oil-production-forced-to-slow/NI10052">reported</a> on February 9.</p>
<p>In that environment, the pressure for drillers to cut costs and for barging companies to find new clients is intense. “GreenHunter Resources estimates that each 10,000 barrels of disposal volumes transported via barge will reduce trucking hours by approximately 600 hours,” the company <a href="http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=219127&amp;p=irol-newsArticle&amp;ID=2010625">told</a> investors in a January 26 statement. “The reduced transport charges are anticipated to lead to significant margin improvement for GreenHunter Resources as well as potential cost savings for GreenHunter’s valued clients.”</p>
<p>But as DeSmog has <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/02/05/shale-industry-moves-ship-fracking-waste-barge-threatens-drinking-water-supplies">previously reported</a>, environmentalists worry not only about the difficulties of controlling spills of shale wastewater, which unlike oil spills cannot be controlled by booms, but also the risk of illegal dumping. The costs of legal disposal outstrip can outstrip the potential fines for illegal dumping, and wastewater haulers have been caught simply opening the spigots to dispose of the waste.</p>
<p>The company's overall strategy, which involves the completion of the Mills Hunter Facility in Portland, Ohio before the end of the year, could also sharply increase the amount of wastewater shipped to Ohio.</p>
<p>“Based on those numbers, Mills Hunter would handle and inject about 7.8 million barrels of waste per year, making it the No. 1 injection site in Ohio by far,” the Ohio Beacon <a href="http://www.ohio.com/news/local/company-wins-federal-approval-to-ship-liquid-drilling-wastes-by-barge-on-ohio-river-1.563753?localLinksEnabled=false">reported</a>. “That total would represent about 50 percent of the injection volume handled annually at Ohio’s 201 injection wells.”</p>
<p>These plans may run into significant opposition, as some environmental groups have already launched letters objecting to the Army Corps of Engineers and the Coast Guard.</p>
<p>On Wednesday, the Army Corps of Engineers issued a <a href="http://www.lrh.usace.army.mil/Missions/Regulatory/PublicNotices/tabid/4125/Article/565960/2013-848-ohr.aspx">permit authorization</a> for the offloading facility, but warned against using the terminal for shale gas wastewater from horizontal wells.</p>
<p>“The validated Department of the Army permit prohibits the offloading of <span class="caps">SGEWW</span> generated from horizontal fracking operations,” wrote the Corps, using <span class="caps">SGEWW</span> as an abbreviation for shale gas extraction wastewater, and emphasizing their warning by printing the statement in bold. “If the permittee proposes to offload <span class="caps">SGEWW</span> in the future, they would be required to obtain prior authorization from the Corps.”</p>
<p>Environmental groups say they are concerned that the statements by GreenHunter officials may indicate that the company could already be shipping shale wastewater despite their lack of a shale-specific permit.</p>
<p>In objections sent to the Coast Guard on Wednesday, representatives from roughly three dozen regional and national environmental groups requested the federal government launch an investigation.</p>
<p>“Regulation does not turn on semantic differences, but instead, on physical evidence,” the groups wrote as they requested the Coast Guard issue a cease and desist letter and launch a criminal investigation into the contents of the materials hauled by the company.</p>
<p>“Leakage of GreenHunter cargoes into river waters in the present circumstances, where the company insists it need not test or characterize its 'oilfield wastes' could be catastrophic,” the group wrote, “and at a minimum, could pose continuing environmental and health hazards which would stress public water supplies and various forms of wildlife.”</p>
<p><em><span style="font-size:10px;">Photo Credit: <a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-236393875/stock-photo-picture-of-a-large-barge-moving.html?src=RuwAvyv_MzNd10azFDn18A-1-12&amp;ws=0">Picture of a large barge moving</a>, via Shutterstock.</span></em></p>
</div></div></div><!-- iCopyright Horizontal Tag -->
<div class="icopyright-article-tools-horizontal icopyright-article-tools-left">
<script type="text/javascript">
var icx_publication_id = 14813;
var icx_content_id = '9095';
</script>
<script type="text/javascript"
src="http://license.icopyright.net/rights/js/horz-toolbar.js"></script>
<noscript>
<a class="icopyright-article-tools-noscript"
href="http://license.icopyright.net/3.14813?icx_id=9095"
target="_blank"
title="Main menu of all reuse options">
<img height="25" width="27" border="0" align="bottom"
alt="[Reuse options]"
src="http://license.icopyright.net/images/icopy-w.png"/>
Click here for reuse options!
</a>
</noscript>
</div>
<!-- iCopyright Tag -->
<div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-14 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5133">fracking</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5565">shale gas</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11832">barges</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6843">wastewater</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/19773">GreenHunter Resources</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11833">GreenHunter Water</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7136">Coast Guard</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/9356">Army Corps of Engineers</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11836">Ohio River</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6019">drinking water</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/8488">radioactivity</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11831">radium</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14329">pipe scale</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13963">Permits</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/19774">oilfield waste</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/19775">shale gas extraction wastewater</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7512">Toxic Waste</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/19776">hazardous materials</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/17377">federal regulation</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7277">shale oil</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5401">Marcellus shale</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13222">wastewater injection</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6990">earthquakes</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11834">spills</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/19777">barge</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/19778">barrels</a></div></div></div>Thu, 19 Feb 2015 18:17:54 +0000Sharon Kelly9095 at http://www.desmogblog.comLow Oil Prices, High Oilsands Emissions Should Influence Keystone XL Decision: EPAhttp://desmog.ca/2015/02/04/low-oil-prices-high-oilsands-emissions-should-influence-keystone-xl-decision-epa
<div class="field field-name-field-bimage field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/styles/blog_teaser/public/blogimages/tarsands-redux-49_0.jpg?itok=pKKwhOf-" width="200" height="133" alt="tar sands, oilsands, kris krug" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">A </span><a href="http://www.epa.gov/compliance/nepa/20140032.pdf" style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">letter</a><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;"> submitted by the U.S. </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.390000015497208px; line-height: 1.5em;">Environmental Protection Agency (<span class="caps">EPA</span>)</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;"> to the State Department gives new weight to concerns the proposed $8 billion Keystone <span class="caps">XL</span> pipeline, destined to carry crude from the Alberta oilsands to export facilities along the Gulf of Mexico, will have significant climate impacts.</span></p>
<p><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">The <span class="caps">EPA</span> letter suggests existing analyses – which downplay the importance of greenhouse gas emissions associated with the project – are out of date and require revision in light of low global oil prices.</span></p>
<p><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">Due to the plummeting of oil prices and related market changes “it is important to revisit [the] conclusions” of previous reports, <span class="caps">EPA</span> told the State Department.</span></p>
<p style="letter-spacing: 0.389999985694885px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;"><span class="dquo">“</span>Given recent large declines in oil prices and the uncertainty of oil price projections, the additional low prices scenario in the (State report) should be given additional weight during decision making, due to the potential implications of lower oil prices on project impacts, especially greenhouse gas emissions.”</span></p>
<p style="letter-spacing: 0.389999985694885px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">The State Department is due to release a revised analysis of the Keystone <span class="caps">XL</span> project and is currently gathering comments from the <span class="caps">EPA</span> and other agencies.</span></p>
<!--break-->
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">A recent </span><a href="http://www.desmog.ca/2015/01/07/development-oilsands-incompatible-2c-global-warming-limit-new-study" style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">report in the journal Nature singled out the oilsands</a><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;"> as one of the world’s carbon deposits that must remain in the ground if global temperatures are to remain within the 2 degrees Celsius warming limit recommended by policy makers and scientists.</span><br />
<p><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">Construction of the Keystone <span class="caps">XL</span> pipeline is dependent on a steady flow of oil from the estimated 160 billion barrels in the oilsands. Yet the </span><a href="http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2015/02/02/slump-in-oil-prices-brings-pressure-and-investment-opportunity/?ref=business" style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">drop in prices</a><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;"> has recently led to abandoned projects and major cuts to the workforce. Suncor, the oilsands’ largest operator, recently </span><a href="http://calgaryherald.com/business/energy/suncor-cuts-1b-in-capital-plans-to-chop-1000-positions" style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">announced it will eliminate 1,000 jobs</a><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">, </span><a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/09/us-shell-canada-employment-idUSKBN0KI1VR20150109" style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">Shell Canada will cuts its workforce by 10 per cent</a><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;"> and Cenovus Energy confirmed its </span><a href="http://www.proactiveinvestors.com/companies/news/59523/cenovus-cuts-2015-capital-budget-by-another-27-since-last-december-forecast-59523.html" style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">investment in the area will drop by 25 per cent</a><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">.</span></p>
<p><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">A Republican-led Congress is attempting to force approval of the Keystone <span class="caps">XL</span> pipeline with new legislation, although President </span><a href="http://www.desmog.ca/2015/01/06/white-house-confirms-obama-veto-transcanada-s-keystone-xl-pipeline" style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">Barack Obama has been clear about his plan to veto</a><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;"> any bills that would allow construction to begin.</span></p>
<p><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">In 2013, Obama indicated his final decision on the pipeline will </span><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/06/25/2208941/obama-says-keystone-xl-should-be-rejected-if-it-will-increase-carbon-emissions/" style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">come down to the project’s climate impact</a><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">, saying “our national interest will be served only if this project does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution.”</span></p>
<p><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">In its letter to the State Department this week, the <span class="caps">EPA</span> said carbon emissions from the pipeline — which has the capacity to carry 830,000 barrels of oil per day — would add up to the equivalent of 5.7 million new passenger vehicles on the road.</span></p>
<p><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;"><span class="dquo">“</span>Over the 50-year lifetime of the pipeline, this could translate into releasing as much as 1.37 billion more tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere,” the letter states.</span></p>
<p><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">Alberta premier Jim Prentice travelled to Washington, <span class="caps">D.C.</span> this week to lobby Congress and the Obama administration to approve the pipeline.</span></p>
<p><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">Prentice recently <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2015/02/03/383566972/alberta-premier-says-keystone-xl-pipeline-benefits-u-s-and-canada?sc=17?f=1001&amp;utm_source=iosnewsapp&amp;utm_medium=Email&amp;utm_campaign=app">told <span class="caps">NPR</span></a> that Alberta “has the most exacting standards around in terms of carbon emissions, the regulatory framework that surrounds industrial emissions.”</span></p>
<p><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">When it comes to the venting and flaring of gasses with high warming potentials like methane, Prentice said, “in all these areas, I think we’re world class.”</span></p>
<p><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">Yet the <span class="caps">EPA</span> seems to have come to its own conclusion regarding Alberta’s greenhouse gas regulations, stating, “until ongoing efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with the production of oil sands are more successful and widespread…development of oil sands crude represents a significant increase in greenhouse gas emissions.”</span></p>
<p><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">Canada currently has no regulation to limit emissions from the oil and gas industry, and recently </span><a href="http://www.desmog.ca/2014/12/10/reality-stephen-harper-vs-reality-carbon-taxes" style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">Prime Minister Stephen Harper said it would be “crazy” to introduce such rules</a><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">.</span></p>
<p><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">The <span class="caps">EPA</span> letter notes “oil sands crude has significantly higher lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions than other crudes” and that the use of oilsands crude creates emissions 17 per cent greater than the use of crude refined in the <span class="caps">U.S.</span> on a well-to-wheels basis.</span></p>
<p><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">Premier Prentice argued Canada will continue to move crude to the <span class="caps">U.S.</span> with or without the Keystone <span class="caps">XL</span> pipeline, suggesting rail will pick up the slack. In its letter the <span class="caps">EPA</span> appears to agree with this point, suggesting oilsands producers would likely stomach the high cost of rail transport.</span></p>
<p><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">But the letter goes on to point to the additional risks associated with transporting large quantities of bitumen, which “can have different impacts than spills of conventional oil.” A recent government-commissioned study in Canada acknowledges there are </span><a href="http://globalnews.ca/news/1808065/10-things-we-dont-know-about-bitumen-toxicity/" style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">large gaps in existing knowledge</a><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;"> when it comes to the effects of bitumen spills.</span></p>
<p><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">Concerns over the pipeline route, especially in Nebraska, requires greater spill preparedness and a clear commitment from TransCanada that the company will assume responsibility for any spills and remediation should a release occur. Spills remain “a concern for citizens and businesses relying on groundwater resources crossed by the route,” the <span class="caps">EPA</span> letter notes.</span></p>
<p><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org, called the letter a “damning report” and said with it, “the president’s got every nail he needs to finally close the coffin on this boondoggle.”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:10px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;"><em>Image Credit: Kris Krug</em></span></span></p>
</div></div></div><!-- iCopyright Horizontal Tag -->
<div class="icopyright-article-tools-horizontal icopyright-article-tools-left">
<script type="text/javascript">
var icx_publication_id = 14813;
var icx_content_id = '9056';
</script>
<script type="text/javascript"
src="http://license.icopyright.net/rights/js/horz-toolbar.js"></script>
<noscript>
<a class="icopyright-article-tools-noscript"
href="http://license.icopyright.net/3.14813?icx_id=9056"
target="_blank"
title="Main menu of all reuse options">
<img height="25" width="27" border="0" align="bottom"
alt="[Reuse options]"
src="http://license.icopyright.net/images/icopy-w.png"/>
Click here for reuse options!
</a>
</noscript>
</div>
<!-- iCopyright Tag -->
<div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-14 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5139">keystone xl pipeline</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/2702">obama</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/939">climate change</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/913">global warming</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/1976">emissions</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/epa">EPA</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7533">Letter</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5573">State Department</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5538">bitumen</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11834">spills</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/2738">oilsands</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/2632">tar sands</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5371">regulation</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/1330">harper</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/8242">Rail</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7290">oil spills</a></div></div></div>Wed, 04 Feb 2015 20:17:56 +0000Carol Linnitt9056 at http://www.desmogblog.comA Record Year of Oil Train Accidents Leaves Insurers Waryhttp://www.desmogblog.com/2014/03/17/record-year-oil-train-accidents-leaves-insurers-wary
<div class="field field-name-field-bimage field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/styles/blog_teaser/public/blogimages/shutterstock_132864779.jpg?itok=pHDpNloN" width="200" height="133" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>Spurred by the shale drilling rush that has progressed at breakneck speed, the railroad industry has moved fast to help drillers transport petroleum and its byproducts to consumers. Last year, trains hauled over 400,000 carloads of crude oil, up from just 9,500 carloads in 2008, <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/energy-and-resources/us-regulators-order-crude-oil-tests-before-rail-shipment/article17096325/">according to</a> railroad industry estimates. Each carload represents roughly 30,000 gallons of flammable liquids, and some trains haul over 100 oil cars at a time.</p>
<p>But with this fast expansion has come some astounding risks — risks that have insurance companies and underwriters increasingly concerned.</p>
<p>A string of oil train explosions have highlighted the potential for harm. A train hauling 2.9 million gallons of Bakken oil derailed and exploded on November 8 in Aliceville, Alabama, and the oil that leaked but did not burn <a href="http://www.paradisepost.com/news/ci_25352091/months-after-oil-train-derailment-crude-still-found.">continues to foul</a> the wetlands in the area.<br /><br />
On December 30th, a train collision in Casselton, North Dakota 20 miles outside of Fargo, prompted a mass evacuation of over half the town’s residents after 18 cars exploded into fireballs visible for miles. 400,000 gallons of oil spilled after <a href="http://http://www.startribune.com/business/239948631.html http://www.startribune.com/local/238207831.html">that accident</a>, which involved two trains traveling well below local speed limits.</p>
<p><span class="dquo">“</span>Those crashes are all on the radar of the insurance industry,” attorney Dean Hansell recently <a href="http://www.law360.com/articles/502246/insurers-will-take-lead-on-oil-rail-transport-safety-push">told Law360</a>.</p>
<p>All told, railcar accidents spilled more than 1.15 million gallons of crude oil <a href="http://www.kansascity.com/2014/01/20/4764674/more-oil-spilled-from-trains-in.html">in 2013</a>, federal data shows, compared with an average of just 22,000 gallons a year from 1975 through 2012 — a fifty-fold spike.</p>
<!--break-->
<p>Bakken oil train explosions have mostly been far from populated areas. But around <span class="caps">1AM</span> on July 5, 2013, over 60 oil cars exploded after a runaway train derailed in Lac-Megantic, a Canadian town near the Maine border, leveling dozens of buildings and <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news2/interactives/lac-megantic-faces/.">killing 47</a> of the town’s roughly 6,000 residents.</p>
<p>The railroad company, Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway, went belly up, leaving behind clean-up costs estimated at over $180 million. Canadian regulators discovered the company carried only <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-23686321 http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/lac-m%C3%A9gantic-rail-disaster-company-mm-a-files-for-bankruptcy-1.1338481">$25 million</a> in liability insurance. Legal battles over clean-up costs and lawsuits from survivors are expected to take at least <a href="http://globalnews.ca/news/756237/who-will-pay-for-cleanup-legal-battle-brewing-over-lac-megantic-spill/">a decade to resolve</a> — and for the time being, taxpayers are picking up the tab.</p>
<p>That tragic accident took place in a small town. An explosion in a major city could represent a far larger calamity. But neither oil and gas companies nor railroads carry enough insurance to cover the kind of catastrophe at risk when shipping crude by rail.</p>
<p>“There is not currently enough available coverage in the commercial insurance market anywhere in the world to cover the worst-case scenario,” James Beardsley, an executive with Marsh <span class="amp">&amp;</span> McLennan Cos.' Marsh Inc. insurance brokerage unit, <a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304773104579268871635384130">told</a> the Wall Street Journal in January.</p>
<p><strong>Bakken Crude: A Hazard on the Rails</strong></p>
<p>It’s not just that more oil is moving by train, it’s also that Bakken shale oil seems to be particularly dangerous, according to federal regulators.</p>
<p>On January 2nd, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (<span class="caps">PHMSA</span>) issued a rare safety alert, saying “recent derailments and resulting fires indicate that the type of crude oil being transported from the Bakken region may be more flammable than traditional heavy crude oil.”<br /><br />
A few weeks later, the National Transportation Safety Board (<span class="caps">NTSB</span>) and its Canadian counterpart, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada warned that an oil train accident <a href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/01/23/215547/ntsb-pushes-regulators-to-improve.html">could result</a> in a “major loss of life” as they called for hazardous material shipping rules to apply to crude oil trains.</p>
<p><span class="dquo">“</span>The large-scale shipments of crude oil by rail simply didn’t exist 10 years ago, and our safety regulations need to catch up with this new reality,” <a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ntsb-oil-train-crash-risks-major-loss-life">said</a> <span class="caps">NTSB</span> Chairman Deborah Hersman.</p>
<p>Railroad officials say that they’ve already taken voluntary steps to reduce the danger. Maximum speeds for trains with oil cars have been reduced, and where possible, trains are routed outside of major cities and highly populated corridors.</p>
<p>But some refineries handling Bakken crude are located directly inside major cities — like the major refinery in Philadelphia, where a train recently derailed over the Schuylkill river, just yards from a major highway underpass.</p>
<p>Every month, railcars carrying five million barrels of Bakken crude roll through the core of Philadelphia, heading to a refinery formerly owned by Sunoco and now run by a company called Philadelphia Energy Solutions, according to <a href="http://http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20140310_Can_rail_infrastructure_get_back_on_track_.html#QP2YXvVJLR47SWVV.99">local press</a> reports.</p>
<p>Oil trains also pass through New York City, Chicago, the Pacific Northwest and the Gulf Coast.</p>
<p><strong>Insurers Nervous</strong></p>
<p>Over the past few years, many of the risks associated with fracking have drawn increased attention from insurers and insurance underwriters.</p>
<p>Increasingly, insurers are taking steps to insulate themselves against liability when fracking pollutes air and water or leads to accidents. A standard homeowner’s insurance policy won’t cover harm from fracking pollution, and insurance companies have <a href="http://www.insureme.com/home-insurance/fracking">so far declined</a> to offer special policies that would cover fracking risks. Nationwide Insurance, for example, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/13/nationwide-insurance-fracking_n_1669775.html">announced</a> that its homeowners’ policies would not cover damage from fracking, saying the risks “are too great to ignore.”<br /><br />
When insurance runs out, companies can still be sued for the harm they do — but if they don’t have enough money to cover the claim, the people hurt may be out of luck.<br /><br />
“If the full net worth of the company (in addition to insurance coverage) is insufficient to cover the costs associated with an event, those costs will be borne by those who have suffered property damage or injuries,” the McMillian group, an actuarial consulting firmed wrote in a June 2012 <a href="http://us.milliman.com/insight/insurance/Fracking-Considerations-for-risk-management-and-financing/">note</a>, explaining that drillers’ use of shell corporations to shield assets made that “a very real possibility.”</p>
<p><strong>Ruinous Liability</strong></p>
<p>Railroads may find themselves in a similar bind.</p>
<p>Only few dozen insurance companies offer liability insurance to railroads, and coverage is often limited to less than $50 million per policy, meaning that the highest level of coverage available, if a company maxes out available policies, is <a href="http://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/policy/acg-acgb-review-liability-rail-3106.html">$1.5 billion</a>. Major railroads commonly “self-insure” against accidents over a certain threshold, meaning that a big enough accident could wipe out all of a company’s assets.</p>
<p>So without enough insurance, hauling that crude represents a major gamble.<br /><br />
“A railroad moving hazardous shipments faces exposure to potentially ruinous liability,” the Association of American Railroads <a href="http://uk.mobile.reuters.com/article/rbssIndustryMaterialsUtilitiesNews/idUKL5N0L12EJ20140127?feedType=RSS&amp;feedName=rbssIndustryMaterialsUtilitiesNews">told</a> the Canadian Transportation Agency. “While incidents involving highly hazardous materials on railroads are exceedingly rare, railroads could be subjected to multi-billion dollar claims solely because of the unusual characteristics of the commodities themselves.”</p>
<p>Adequately protecting against oil train explosions would be expensive, raising the costs of delivering oil to consumers. But if shippers and railroads do not carry insurance, an explosion could bankrupt the companies involved, leaving the people rebuilding in the lurch.</p>
<p>As the Obama administration considered the Keystone <span class="caps">XL</span>’s pipeline application, it decided it was unnecessary to take all of the impacts of tar sands extraction into account, reasoning that the oil would find other ways to market. The bitumen, they said, would be shipped by train if it was not pumped through pipelines, so construction would have little impact on how quickly or pervasively tar sands oil was extracted.</p>
<p><span class="dquo">“</span>Cross-border pipeline constraints have a limited impact on crude flows and prices,” the State Department report <a href="http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/03/06/experts-rail-a-feasible-alternative-for-keystone-xl">said</a>. “If new east-west and cross-border pipelines were both completely constrained, oil sands crude could reach <span class="caps">U.S.</span> and Canadian refineries by rail.”</p>
<p>But the growing concerns from the insurance industry undermine that assumption. Shipping by rail already costs between $2 and $22 per barrel <a href="http://theenergycollective.com/jessejenkins/232591/climate-change-impacts-keystone-XL">more</a> than shipping by pipeline, and <a href="http://missoulian.com/news/state-and-regional/buffett-says-rail-tank-cars-need-upgrades-for-oil/article_5add63c2-a2e7-11e3-9e08-001a4bcf887a.html">upgrading rail cars</a>, <a href="http://lancasteronline.com/donegal/news/concerns-over-recent-oil-train-accidents-prompt-training-session-for/article_066604ee-a872-11e3-8210-0017a43b2370.html">training</a> <a href="http://www.mprnews.org/story/2014/03/04/oil-trains-safety">first responders</a> in case of a catastrophe, and <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=282872579">rebuilding aging rail lines</a> will all add enormous additional expenses.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-02-13/oil-train-explosions-u-dot-s-dot-regulators-slow-to-react">A plan</a> endorsed by the mayors of several major <span class="caps">U.S.</span> cities, including Philadelphia and Chicago, calls for fees on train shipments to cover these costs.</p>
<p>The issue “starts to revolve around the dollar sign,” Canadian Pacific Railway <span class="caps">CEO</span> E. Hunter Harrison <a href="http://http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304773104579268871635384130">told</a> the Wall Street Journal. “Can we do this safer? Yes. But who's going to pay? If you decide this commodity must be moved in the public interest, then I think all of us have to pay.”</p>
<p>The question is, are those costs worth paying, especially when renewable energy sources <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/24/sunday-review/life-after-oil-and-gas.html?_r=0">grow more viable</a> every year?</p>
<p><span style="font-size:8px;">Photo Credit: <a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-132864779/stock-photo-train-accident.html?src=Oy6EfxNb04-b4S2juQph9A-1-24">Train Accident</a>, via Shutterstock.</span></p>
</div></div></div><!-- iCopyright Horizontal Tag -->
<div class="icopyright-article-tools-horizontal icopyright-article-tools-left">
<script type="text/javascript">
var icx_publication_id = 14813;
var icx_content_id = '7930';
</script>
<script type="text/javascript"
src="http://license.icopyright.net/rights/js/horz-toolbar.js"></script>
<noscript>
<a class="icopyright-article-tools-noscript"
href="http://license.icopyright.net/3.14813?icx_id=7930"
target="_blank"
title="Main menu of all reuse options">
<img height="25" width="27" border="0" align="bottom"
alt="[Reuse options]"
src="http://license.icopyright.net/images/icopy-w.png"/>
Click here for reuse options!
</a>
</noscript>
</div>
<!-- iCopyright Tag -->
<div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-14 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15560">Bakken oil</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7277">shale oil</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/8957">trains</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15561">rail roads</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/8240">Railroads</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/insurance">insurance</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14573">liability</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/8827">explosions</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11834">spills</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15562">Aliceville</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14812">casselton</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13118">Lac-Megantic</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15563">Montreal Main and Atlantic Railway</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5790">lawsuits</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15564">survivors</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14070">taxpayers</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15565">large city</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15566">Philadelphia</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/2714">Chicago</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/911">new york</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10938">Seattle</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7247">national transportation safety board</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/9606">NTSB</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15567">Transportation Safety Board of Canada</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15568">major loss of life</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7582">refineries</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15569">Bakken crude</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5612">crude oil</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5538">bitumen</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15570">Natiowide Insurance</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15571">homeowners insurance</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5133">fracking</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15572">bankrupt</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/2520">Association of American Railroads</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5857">Keystone XL</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/4754">President Obama</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15573">State Department report</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11450">costs</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/12736">Expenses</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15574">first responder training</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15575">railroad infrastructure</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15576">detrailments</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15577">derail</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15578">explode</a></div></div></div>Tue, 18 Mar 2014 13:00:00 +0000Sharon Kelly7930 at http://www.desmogblog.comAmid Calls for EPA to Reopen Fracking Investigations, States Confirm Contaminated Groundwaterhttp://www.desmogblog.com/2014/01/31/multiple-states-confirm-fracking-has-contaminated-groundwater
<div class="field field-name-field-bimage field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/styles/blog_teaser/public/blogimages/bad%20water.png?itok=boBdH8-L" width="200" height="175" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>Republican Sen. James Inhofe <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/green/2011/04/21/160368/jim-inhofe-fracking-never-contaminate/">said it</a>. Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper said it. Even former Environmental Protection Agency chief Lisa Jackson <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4RLzlcox5c">said it</a>.</p>
<p>For over a decade, oil and gas executives and the policy makers who support them have repeated a single bold claim: there has never been a single documented case where fracking contaminated groundwater. </p>
<p>But a blockbuster <a href="http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2022603080_apxgasdrillingwatercontamination.html">investigative report</a> by the <em>Associated Press</em> offered up new evidence earlier this month that the shale industry’s keystone environmental claim is simply not true.</p>
<p>Multiple states confirmed that drilling and fracking contaminated groundwater supplies, the investigation found. There have been thousands of complaints from people living near drilling over the past decade, the <span class="caps">AP</span> reported, and three out of the four states from which the <span class="caps">AP</span> obtained documents confirmed multiple instances where oil and gas companies contaminated groundwater.</p>
<p>Out of the four states the <span class="caps">AP</span> obtained documents from, only Texas reported no confirmed oil and gas-related groundwater contamination. But one <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/11/06/steve-lipsky-s-flaming-tapwater-no-joke">high-profile incident</a> in Texas has again come under scrutiny, as a <a href="http://www.epa.gov/oig/reports/2014/20131220-14-P-0044.pdf">report</a> quietly released by the Obama administration on Christmas Eve has called the adequacy of the state’s investigation into question.</p>
<p>On Monday, over 200 environmental groups called on President Obama to reopen the federal investigations into that case and others in Pennsylvania and in Wyoming, and to personally meet with people whose drinking water supplies have been polluted.</p>
<p>“The previously closed <span class="caps">EPA</span> investigation into these matters must be re-opened,” said <a href="http://documents.foodandwaterwatch.org/doc/Obama_IG_Report_Letter_1-27-14.pdf">the letter</a>, sent the day before Mr. Obama's State of the Union address. “These three are among a growing number of cases of water contamination linked to drilling and fracking, and a significant and rapidly growing body of scientific evidence showing the harms drilling and fracking pose to public health and the environment.”</p>
<!--break-->
<p>In Pennsylvania, where the Marcellus shale has fueled the nation’s most aggressive unconventional gas rush, the number of complaints state regulators received is jaw-dropping. “The <span class="caps">AP</span> found that Pennsylvania received 398 complaints in 2013 alleging that oil or natural gas drilling polluted or otherwise affected private water wells, compared with 499 in 2012. …. More than 100 cases of pollution were confirmed over the past five years.”</p>
<p>To put those numbers in perspective, only 5,000 wells have been drilled so far in Pennsylvania. Regulators have <a href="http://http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/03/01/us/natural-gas-documents-2.html#document/p9/a10738">projected</a> at least 10 times that number will be drilled in the state over the next two decades.</p>
<p>In total, state regulators had confirmed at least 116 individual cases of water contamination in the past five years in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia, according to the <span class="caps">AP</span> report. The confirmed cases do not include many incidents whose causes regulators are still investigating.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:20px;">Word Games</span></p>
<p>The shale industry’s claim that fracking has never contaminated groundwater has been debunked various ways by multiple venues, including the new Associated Press report. Nonetheless, the line has been a favorite talking point among politicians who support drilling.</p>
<p>For example, Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper made the following statement in a 2012 radio ad: “In 2008, Colorado passed tough oil and gas rules. Since then, we have not had once instance of groundwater contamination associated with drilling and hydraulic fracturing.”</p>
<p>But according to <a href="http://checksandbalancesproject.org/tag/hickenlooper-2/">the Checks and Balances Project</a>, “[a] review of the Colorado Oil and Gas Information System shows that approximately 20 percent of all spills in 2012 resulted in water contamination; 22 of those spills impacted surface water, while 63 impacted groundwater. … In June of this year, Bruce Finley at the Denver Post <a href="http://www.denverpost.com/environment/ci_23519695/colorado-absorbs-179-oil-and-gas-spills-parachute">reported</a> that, according to Colorado Oil and Gas Commission records, 179 oil and gas industry spills occurred in the state, just during the first half of 2013. In 26 of those spills, groundwater was contaminated, and 15 of them directly polluted ponds and creeks.”</p>
<p>If the claim that fracking does not pollute groundwater is so demonstrably false, how can it be so widely repeated? Oil and gas executives like Exxon Mobil’s Rex Tillerson have repeated that line <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/04/us/04natgas.html?pagewanted=all">in Congressional hearings</a>, where a deliberately false statement could theoretically lead to a perjury charge.</p>
<p>At its root, the carefully-worded claim is built on a deeply misleading semantic maneuver. Every word in the sentence is carefully chosen. For starters, those who defend it <a href="http://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2013/07/02/sorry_josh_you_actually_show_fracking_is_safe_107113.html">claim</a> that unless one narrow stage of the shale gas extraction process, the hydraulic fracturing process itself, caused a rock fracture that allowed fracking fluid to rise up into aquifers, the contamination doesn’t count.</p>
<p>Did the contamination happen when the shale gas well was being drilled not fracked? Doesn’t count. Did the <a href="http://frackwire.com/well-casing-failure/">cement in the wellbore</a> crack during fracking, allowing contaminants to escape and pollute a water well? Doesn’t count, that was a cement problem not a fracking problem. Did an Exxon Mobil subsidiary illegally dump 57,000 gallons of wastewater from a tank onto the ground, leading to <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/01/03/3115991/exxon-criminal-charges-fracking-spill/">felony charges</a> against the company? Did a <a href="http://www.post-gazette.com/marcellusshale/2012/05/25/Shale-drilling-contaminated-water-families-say-in-lawsuit/stories/201205250177">leaky fracking waste pit</a> pollute a water well and sicken several families? Does not count.</p>
<p>Insisting that contamination doesn’t count unless it happened in one particular way is not only misleading, it makes little sense. Without fracking, drillers could not pump gas from the shale formations that lay below the backyards of millions of Americans. Further, it matters little to the people living nearby what particular piece of equipment drillers were using when their drinking water went bad; it ultimately only matters that it happened because the drillers made a mistake.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:20px;">Hiding the Ball</span></p>
<p>But even by the narrow rules of the industry’s misleading semantic game, the claim that fracking has never contaminated groundwater has long been demonstrably false.</p>
<p>In August 2011, a front-page New York Times <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/04/us/04natgas.html?pagewanted=all">investigation</a> showed that as early as the 1980’s, the <span class="caps">EPA</span> had found instances where the precise problem occurred. “When fracturing the Kaiser gas well on Mr. James Parson’s property, fractures were created allowing migration of fracture fluid from the gas well to Mr. Parson’s water well,” the <span class="caps">EPA</span> wrote – describing exactly the type of incident the industry claims never happened.</p>
<p>The <span class="caps">EPA</span> added that this sort of contamination was “illustrative” of the hazards of fracking, and that they believed there were other examples but that sealed court records had blocked <span class="caps">EPA</span> investigators from accessing documentation of those events.</p>
<p>Restricting the conversation to only documented cases of contamination means that if you can keep the documentation out of the public eye through non-disclosure agreements, it didn’t happen.</p>
<p>But there’s another game that's played when only “documented cases” count: the burden of proof shifts. The industry, despite its extensive resources, doesn't have to show that water contamination that happens proximate to drilling is not their fault. Instead, landowners must prove causation.</p>
<p>The current drilling rush is taking place in an economy where wealth is heavily concentrated in relatively few hands. Pennsylvania’s shale region is <a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10000872396390444549204578020602281237088">also the rust belt</a>, where the retreat of the steel industry and manufacturing jobs left many residents facing declining economic prospects. Landowners often simply do not have the financial resources to <a href="http://centerjd.org/content/faq-fracking-regulation-and-obstacles-litigation">pursue legal claims</a> that can require elaborate testing and the testimony of multiple experts in geology and rock mechanics. They often fail to arrange for pre-drilling water tests to prove their water was safe before drilling – and even when they do pay for water testing, the results may later be ruled inadmissible on a technicality.</p>
<p>And in proving that the company contaminated their water, landowners are up against the oil and gas industry’s highly-paid lawyers and their teams of expert witnesses whose job is to create doubt by suggesting that some other problem could possibly have been to blame. Landowners are very often simply out-gunned and out-spent by the oil and gas companies they believe contaminated their drinking water.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:20px;">Watching the Watchdogs</span></p>
<p>State regulators, charged with investigating contamination claims on taxpayers’ behalf, have often faced allegations of <a href="http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&amp;b=7876381">regulatory capture</a>. A still-unfolding case in Texas shows just how fraught state investigations can become.</p>
<p>Just before Christmas, the <span class="caps">EPA</span>’s internal watchdog, the Office of Inspector General, <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-24/epa-fracking-probe-of-range-resources-met-requirements-ig-says.html">released a stunning report</a> that cast new light onto one of the most controversial groundwater contamination claims in the nation.</p>
<p>In August 2010, a homeowner in Parker County, Texas called the <span class="caps">EPA</span> to report that his drinking water had become flammable, launching a multi-agency investigation that turned into a major jurisdictional battle between state and federal environmental regulators. In 2012, driller Range Resources was <a href="http://www.rrc.state.tx.us/pressreleases/2012/033012.php">officially cleared</a> by Texas state environmental regulators, and the <span class="caps">EPA</span> had backed down from its investigation of the same incident. At the <a href="http://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&amp;FileStore_id=7d4b80e5-a4f8-42c0-8c62-8cec8fd5e614">prompting of drilling supporters</a> in Congress who suspected that <span class="caps">EPA</span> was persecuting oil and gas companies, the <span class="caps">EPA</span>’s <span class="caps">OIG</span> began to investigate whether <a href="http://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/eij/article/money_to_burn/">an alleged anti-fracking agenda</a> had led <span class="caps">EPA</span> officials to overstep their authority.</p>
<p>But in a remarkable turn-around, the <span class="caps">OIG</span> <a href="http://www.epa.gov/oig/reports/2014/20131220-14-P-0044.pdf">not only found</a> that the <span class="caps">EPA</span> was justified in pursuing the Parker County case, but also that the state’s investigation, conducted by the Railroad Commission of Texas (<span class="caps">RRC</span>) which enforces environmental laws in the state, had been insufficient. State officials lacked clear standards for assessing water contamination, the report said.</p>
<p>“When we asked staff/officials of the <span class="caps">RRC</span> what sort of evidence <span class="caps">RRC</span> required to determine if a direct connection existed, they told us that they did not know,” the <span class="caps">EPA</span> Inspector General wrote, as they described the shortcomings of the state's investigation. “They said the <span class="caps">RRC</span> has never had a case where they found a direct connection between an oil or gas well and a drinking water well.”</p>
<p>Pressure is mounting for the <span class="caps">EPA</span> take over and resume a leading role in investigating the case.</p>
<p>If the <span class="caps">EPA</span> finds Range Resources responsible, Parker County will represent yet another instance, like the hundreds the <span class="caps">AP</span> found nationwide, where drilling and fracking have contaminated groundwater.</p>
<p>“The <span class="caps">EPA</span>’s internal watchdog has confirmed that the <span class="caps">EPA</span> was justified in stepping in to protect residents who were and still are in imminent danger,” <a href="http://http://www.earthworksaction.org/media/detail/inspector_general_epa_justified_in_intervention_to_protect_drinking_water_f#.Us2YO9JDuAg">said</a> Sharon Wilson, Gulf Regional Organizer of Earthworks and a blogger who <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-19/texas-fracker-accused-of-bully-tactics-against-foes.html">had emails subpoenaed</a> by Range Resources over her writing on the case. “Now we need an investigation as to whether political corruption caused <span class="caps">EPA</span> to withdraw that protection.”</p>
</div></div></div><!-- iCopyright Horizontal Tag -->
<div class="icopyright-article-tools-horizontal icopyright-article-tools-left">
<script type="text/javascript">
var icx_publication_id = 14813;
var icx_content_id = '7736';
</script>
<script type="text/javascript"
src="http://license.icopyright.net/rights/js/horz-toolbar.js"></script>
<noscript>
<a class="icopyright-article-tools-noscript"
href="http://license.icopyright.net/3.14813?icx_id=7736"
target="_blank"
title="Main menu of all reuse options">
<img height="25" width="27" border="0" align="bottom"
alt="[Reuse options]"
src="http://license.icopyright.net/images/icopy-w.png"/>
Click here for reuse options!
</a>
</noscript>
</div>
<!-- iCopyright Tag -->
<div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-14 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5133">fracking</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6635">Water Contamination</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7098">groundwater</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14901">ground water</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14902">water wells</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/2920">pollution</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6304">talking points</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14903">no documented case</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5137">hydraulic fracturing</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14904">causation</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/sen-james-inhofe">Sen. James Inhofe</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14905">John Hickenlooper</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/3930">Lisa Jackson</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/1278">Associated Press</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/9735">Kevin Begos</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6499">Drilling</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14906">contaminated groundwater</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/2625">pennsylvania</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6303">Ohio</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/3035">west virginia</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/917">texas</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14907">regulators</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/2581">water quality</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5565">shale gas</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7277">shale oil</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11834">spills</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14908">cracked casings</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14909">Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM)</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/726">rex tillerson</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/12160">cement</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14910">tank</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/8942">Criminal Charges</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14911">felony charges</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14912">perjury</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14913">wastewater pits</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14914">leaks</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14915">dumping</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/690">new york times</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14916">Drilling Down</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14917">Kaiser gas well</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14918">non-disclosure agreements</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14919">proximate cause</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14920">rust belt</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14921">litigation expenses</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7294">doubt</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6157">Texas Railroad Commission</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/1471">Environmental Protection Agency</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/epa">EPA</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14922">Office of the Inspector General</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6156">Parker County</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14923">flammable drinking water</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14924">Range Resources (NYSE: RRC); Sharon Wilsom</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6154">Earthworks Oil and Gas Accountability Project</a></div></div></div>Fri, 31 Jan 2014 13:00:00 +0000Sharon Kelly7736 at http://www.desmogblog.comCoast Guard Proposal to Allow Barges to Haul Fracking Wastewater Draws Fire From Environmentalistshttp://www.desmogblog.com/2013/11/09/coast-guard-plans-allow-fracking-wastewater-shipment-barge-under-fire
<div class="field field-name-field-bimage field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/styles/blog_teaser/public/blogimages/barge_0.jpg?itok=Kv5Etwsz" width="200" height="133" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>The <span class="caps">U.S.</span> Coast Guard released plans that would allow wastewater from shale gas to be shipped via barge in the nation’s rivers and waterways on October 30 — and those rules have kicked up a storm of controversy. The proposal is drawing fire from locals and environmentalists along the Ohio and Mississippi rivers who say the Coast Guard failed to examine the environmental impacts of a spill and is only giving the public 30 days to comment on the plan.<br /><br />
Three million <a href="http://www.ohioriverfdn.org/education/ohio_river_facts/">people</a> get their water from the Ohio River, and further downstream, <a href="http://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/habitats/riverslakes/explore/explore-the-mississippi-river-think-you-know-the-river.xml">millions more</a> rely on drinking water from the Mississippi. If the Coast Guard's <a href="http://www.uscg.mil/hq/cg5/cg521/docs/CG-ENG.ProposedPolicy.ShaleGasWasteWater.pdf">proposed policy</a> is approved, barges carrying <a href="http://publicsource.org/investigations/shale-drillers-eager-move-wastewater-barges">10,000 barrels</a> of fracking wastewater would float downstream from northern Appalachia to Ohio, Texas and Louisiana.</p>
<p>Environmentalists say a spill could be disastrous, because the wastewater would contaminate drinking water and the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-chameides/fracking-water-its-just-s_b_4045936.html">complicated brew</a> of contaminants in fracking waste, which include corrosive salts and radioactive materials, would be nearly impossible to clean up.<br /><br />
The billions of gallons of wastewater from fracking represent one of the biggest bottlenecks for the shale gas industry.<br /><br />
States atop the Marcellus shale are brimming with the stuff. Traditionally, oil and gas wastewater is disposed by <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/injection-wells-the-poison-beneath-us">pumping it underground</a> using wastewater disposal wells, but the underground geology of northeastern states like <a href="http://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/tag/deep-injection-well/">Pennsylvania</a> makes this far more difficult than in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/29/us/wastewater-disposal-wells-proliferate-along-with-fracking.html">states like Texas</a>, and Ohio has suffered a spate of earthquakes that federal researchers concluded were linked to these wastewater wells. The volumes of water used by drillers for the current shale gas boom are unprecedented.</p>
<!--break-->
<p><span style="font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">During </span><a href="http://stateimpact.npr.org/texas/tag/fracking/" style="font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">fracking</a><span style="font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">, millions of gallons of water are mixed with chemicals and sand and blasted into underground shale rock layers to shatter the rock and release minute pockets of trapped natural gas and other fossil fuels like propane or oil. The precise chemicals used in any given well can vary widely, and drillers are not required to tell the public what’s in the specific mix — plus the water picks up </span><a href="http://fcir.org/2013/04/24/florida-fracking-bills-moving-through-legislature/" style="font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">corrosive salts</a><span style="font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">, naturally occurring radioactive materials and reactive metals like </span><a href="http://www.marcellus-shale.us/drilling_wastewater.htm" style="font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">strontium and barium</a><span style="font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">.</span><br /><br />
After wastewater returns to the surface from a fracked well, it is collected in <a href="http://www.marcellus-shale.us/impoundments.htm">large open pits</a> or in tanks. In Pennsylvania, a single wastewater lagoon, the Jon Day Impoundment outside Washington, <span class="caps">PA</span>, can hold 13 to 15 million gallons of fracking wastewater. In West Virginia, another pit can hold 18.2 million gallons.<br /><br />
All that water has to go somewhere; state regulations don’t allow it to sit there forever.<a href="http://www.earthworksaction.org/media/detail/new_fracking_report_finds_high_levels_of_water_consumption_and_waste_genera#.Unx3ficuedw"> Less than ten percent</a> of water used in fracking is ultimately “recycled,” or filtered and used to frack another gas well, a recent report from San Jose State University concluded. Some of the water injected remains underground in the shale rock itself, but the rest of it flows back to the surface and must be disposed.<br /><br />
The Coast Guard’s plan would allow companies to ship this wastewater via barge to disposal sites downstream.<br /><br />
“Waterways are the least costly way of transporting it,” James McCarville, executive director of the Port of Pittsburgh Commission, which advocates for waterway transport, <a href="http://publicsource.org/investigations/us-coast-guard-publishes-proposed-policy-moving-frack-wastewater-barge">told PublicSource</a>. “We look forward to being able to get the trucks off the highways as quickly as possible.”<br /><br />
Barges have a stronger safety record than trucks or trains, proponents argue.<br /><br />
Barge companies had one spill of 1,000 gallons or more for every 39,404 ton-miles, a Texas Transportation Institute report found in 2012. Trucks average one such spill per 8,555 ton-miles and on average, trains had one spill every 58,591 ton-miles.<br /><br />
But opponents say there’s a crucial difference: trucks and trains usually spill onto land, but a barge would send wastewater directly into the river.<br /><br />
“If and when there’s a spill, that can’t be cleaned up,” <a href="http://publicsource.org/investigations/us-coast-guard-publishes-proposed-policy-moving-frack-wastewater-barge">said</a> Benjamin Stout, a biology professor at Wheeling Jesuit University, about 60 miles southwest of Pittsburgh. “That means it’s going to be in the drinking-water supply of millions of people.”<br /><br />
When barges get into accidents, the leaks tend to be much larger than a tanker truck spill. On January 27,<a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/02/05/shale-industry-moves-ship-fracking-waste-barge-threatens-drinking-water-supplies"> two barges crashed</a> into a bridge on the Mississippi river, causing an oil spill from a ruptured fuel tank carrying 80,000 gallons of light sweet crude and leading to a partial shutdown of the lower Mississippi's shipping traffic and a backup of over 800 barges.<br /><br />
And with an oil spill, regulators have <a href="http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/30/16768492-barges-stuck-as-oil-spill-jams-mississippi-river">some tools</a> to stop the spill from spreading. Not so with fracking wastewater.<br /><br />
“Nobody has figured out what the safe thing is to do if fracking water gets in our drinking water,” Tom Hoffman, Western Pennsylvania director of the environmental group Clean Water Action, <a href="http://triblive.com/business/headlines/4988721-74/fracking-stephaich-barges#axzz2k0gNwgJr">told local reporters</a>.<br /><br />
Shippers acknowledge there is a difference between a tanker full of one chemical and a barge full of shale gas waste. “Gasoline is gasoline, chlorine is chlorine. You know what you're getting. But frackwater is going to be different company by company and well by well,” Peter Stephaich, chairman and <span class="caps">CEO</span> of Washington County-based Campbell Transportation Co, <a href="http://triblive.com/business/headlines/4988721-74/fracking-stephaich-barges#axzz2k0gNwgJr">told</a> the Pittsburgh Tribune Review.<br /><br />
The Coast Guard's proposal would require shippers to test each shipment, so they know what each barge holds. But the plan contains a key loophole — if a fracking formula is labeled a trade secret, it will not need to be disclosed. “[T]he identity of proprietary chemicals may be withheld from public release,” the Coast Guard’s policy states.<br /><br />
“All they have to do is say 'proprietary information' and they don’t have to do anything” to make information available to the public, Prof. Stout <a href="http://publicsource.org/investigations/us-coast-guard-publishes-proposed-policy-moving-frack-wastewater-barge">told PublicSource</a>, which has reported on the proposal in-depth.<br /><br />
Those living downstream from one major shipping company <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/03/us-usa-fracking-wastewater-idUSBRE93216L20130403">GreenHunter Water</a>, which has nearly completed a new terminal to ship shale wastewater by barge, remain nervous. City Councilwoman Gloria Delbrugge told local reporters she is not happy about the new plant in her town. GreenHunter Water is 1.2 miles upstream from the city of Wheeling's drinking water treatment plant.<br /><br />
“I won't be there to cut the ribbon for them,” Ms. Delbrugge <a href="http://www.theintelligencer.net/page/content.detail/id/590847/GreenHunter-Set-To--Start-Work-on-Plant.html?nav=515">said</a> in mid-October. “I don't like them, I don't want them and I don't trust them.”<br /><br />
The Coast Guard’s policy would turn a <a href="http://www.energyjustice.net/map/server-test/uploads/meigscan-greenhunter-nepa-demand.pdf">blind eye to spills</a>, but it acknowledges some difficulties posed by radioactive materials in shale wastewater, focusing on the possible harm to barge workers.<br /><br />
Radium and uranium are present at low levels in fracking wastewater, but these elements are naturally attracted to barium and strontium — which just so happen to also be found in the briny waste. Barium and strontium tend to accumulate on metal surfaces — a problem so common that the oil and gas industry has given the flaky build-up a name: “pipe scale.” These scales of barium and strontium can make pipes so radioactive that they are no longer safe to handle. The same thing could happen, the Coast Guard plan suggests, to barges.<br /><br />
GreenHunter officials have said that the levels of radioactivity are extremely low.<br /><br />
It is true that the naturally occurring radioactive materials in a given gallon of frackwater are low. But if enough shale wasterwater flows past a certain point, the low levels of radioactivity can start to accumulate.<br /><br />
For example, a recent <a href="http://cleantechnica.com/2013/10/07/pennsylvania-streams-contaminated-radioactive-water-fracking-research-finds/">Duke University study </a>tested riverbed soils downstream from one wastewater plant and measured radiation levels 200 times of those detected in water samples upstream. “The radioactivity levels we found in sediments near the outflow are above management regulations in the <span class="caps">U.S.</span> and would only be accepted at a licensed radioactive disposal facility,” said professor Robert B. Jackson said in a <a href="http://www.nicholas.duke.edu/news/radioactive-shale-gas-contaminants-found-at-wastewater-discharge-site">press release</a>.<br /><br />
These levels have caught the attention of Coast Guard officials. “The Coast Guard is concerned that, over time, sediment and deposits with radioisotopes may accumulate on the inside of the barge tank surface and may pose a health risk to personnel entering the tank,” the proposed plan says, adding that they plan to focus on how long workers will be exposed to radioactivity, and the levels likely to be found in the barge’s wastewater tanks. But nothing is said about what would happen to the radioactive materials in the event of spills.<br /><br />
With many complex questions left unanswered, critics say the Coast Guard has given the public and independent experts too little time to weigh in on its proposed policy.</p>
<p>“I’m a little disappointed to hear there’s only a 30-day public comment period,” Clean Water Action's Steve Hvozdovich <a href="http://publicsource.org/investigations/us-coast-guard-publishes-proposed-policy-moving-frack-wastewater-barge">said</a>. “Thirty days is not sufficient in my mind.”<br /><br />
Others say the problem is actually the amount of waste generated by the industry and that no matter how it’s transported, it remains a problem.<br /><br />
“Transporting drilling waste by truck leads to increased air pollution, risks accidents and spills, puts undue pressure on local roads and infrastructure,” Erika Staaf of PennEnvironment <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/coast-guard-seeks-comments-on-proposal-to-allow-barges-to-carry-shale-gas-wastewater/2013/11/05/b9e833fa-463b-11e3-95a9-3f15b5618ba8_story.html">told the Associated Press</a>, but “transporting this waste by barge in our nations rivers is unnecessarily risky.”</p>
<p>The public comment period ends November 29.</p>
<p>Comments can be filed in three ways: 1) Go to <a href="http://www.regulations.gov;">www.regulations.gov;</a> 2) Fax comments to 202-493-2251; or 3) Mail them to Docket Management Facility (M-30), <span class="caps">U.S.</span> Department of Transportation, West Building Ground Floor, Room W12-140, 1200 New Jersey Ave. <span class="caps">SE</span>., Washington, <span class="caps">D.C.</span> 20590-0001. All comments must include the docket number, <span class="caps">USCG</span>-2013-0915.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:9px;">Photo Credit: <em><a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-121796419/stock-photo-picture-of-a-large-barge.html?src=EObCmiah10QHb9tb6ze-zQ-1-1">Picture of a Large Barge</a></em>, Via Shutterstock</span></p>
</div></div></div><!-- iCopyright Horizontal Tag -->
<div class="icopyright-article-tools-horizontal icopyright-article-tools-left">
<script type="text/javascript">
var icx_publication_id = 14813;
var icx_content_id = '7609';
</script>
<script type="text/javascript"
src="http://license.icopyright.net/rights/js/horz-toolbar.js"></script>
<noscript>
<a class="icopyright-article-tools-noscript"
href="http://license.icopyright.net/3.14813?icx_id=7609"
target="_blank"
title="Main menu of all reuse options">
<img height="25" width="27" border="0" align="bottom"
alt="[Reuse options]"
src="http://license.icopyright.net/images/icopy-w.png"/>
Click here for reuse options!
</a>
</noscript>
</div>
<!-- iCopyright Tag -->
<div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-14 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7136">Coast Guard</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6879">Radioactive</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6074">fracking wastewater</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11832">barges</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11836">Ohio River</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7421">Mississippi River</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11834">spills</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/9687">Exposure</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11831">radium</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13211">uranium</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14315">fracking flowback</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14316">fracking brine</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14317">corrosive salts</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/8676">public comment</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6019">drinking water</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6232">Spill</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6322">Disaster</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14136">clean-up</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14318">impoundments</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14148">recycling</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6750">Disposal</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14319">least costly</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14320">Port of Pittsburgh Commission</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14321">Benjamin Stout</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14322">Wheeling Jesuit University</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5006">oil spill</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6687">Clean Water Action</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14323">Tom Hoffman</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14324">U.S. Coast Guard</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14325">proprietary chemicals</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11833">GreenHunter Water</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14326">Gloria Delbrugge</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14327">barium</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14328">strontium</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14329">pipe scale</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14330">exposure risk</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7834">Duke University</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14331">sediments</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/9711">Robert B. Jackson</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14332">barge tank</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14333">Steve Hvozdovich</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14334">PennEnvironment</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14335">Erika Staaf</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14336">truck</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14337">railroad</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14338">barging</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11384">waterways</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11447">rivers</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14339">lakes</a></div></div></div>Sat, 09 Nov 2013 19:44:42 +0000Sharon Kelly7609 at http://www.desmogblog.comFracking Coming to Washington D.C.'s Drinking Water?http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/10/18/fracking-coming-washington-d-c-s-drinking-water-source
<div class="field field-name-field-bimage field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/styles/blog_teaser/public/blogimages/GWNF.jpg?itok=mqDdm_8m" width="200" height="133" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>Over the past several years, the battle over fracking has brought Congressional hearings, protests and huge industry money to Washington <span class="caps">DC</span>. But in recent months the topic has taken on a new, more local turn in the nation's capital as oil and gas companies push to drill in a national forest near in the city's backyard and an unusual cast of charaters are lining up to oppose it.</p>
<p>The fight is over access to drill for shale gas in the George Washington National Forest and officials from the Environmental Protect Agency, Army Corps of Engineers and the National Park Service have come out in opposition, even though some of these same federal agencies have in other contexts helped to promote expanded shale gas drilling.</p>
<p>The forest is one of the East Coast’s most pristine ecosystems, home to some of its last old growth forests.</p>
<p>Horizontal drilling, key to shale gas extraction, has never before been permitted in the George Washington National Forest. But as the <span class="caps">U.S.</span> Department of Agriculture Forest Service prepares a <a href="http://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/gwj/landmanagement/planning/?cid=fsbdev3_000527">new 15-year plan</a>, drillers are pushing hard for the ban to be lifted despite the industry’s long record of spills, air pollution and water contamination on public lands.</p>
<!--break-->
<p><span class="dquo">“</span>We want flexibility to operate if improvements in the technology allow it,” Mike Ward, executive director of the Virginia Petroleum Council <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/us-forest-service-set-to-decide-on-fracking-in-george-washington-national-forest/2013/09/07/cb7228aa-1644-11e3-a2ec-b47e45e6f8ef_story.html">told the Washington Post</a> on Saturday in an interview about the George Washington National Forest Land and Resource Management Plan. “To put a moratorium upfront slams the door without any further consideration.”</p>
<p>The ban was first added to a proposed forest management plan in 2011. But it has faced an aggressive campaign by officials from the shale drilling industry, who argue that a moratorium in the George Washington could set a bad precedent. If drilling is blocked in this federal forrest, it can be blocked in others, they say. Currently, shale drilling is underway in 2 other national forests, including Pennsylvania's Allegheny forest atop the Marcellus shale, with operations planned in a third as well.</p>
<p>Among locals, the worry is that the drilling might have an adverse affect on tourism. In Virginia, 138,000 people work in the outdoor recreation industry, which generates roughly $13.6 billion statewide, and over $920 million in state and local tax revenue, <a href="http://www.southernenvironment.org/uploads/fck/file/gwnf/fracking_gw_handout_0413.pdf">according to</a> the Southern Environmental Law Center, which supports the ban. Roughly 3 million visitors pass through the George Washington forest’s recreational areas each year, some hiking the 325-mile stretch of the Appalachian Trail that passes through the George Washington, others arriving in limited-size groups to enjoy the 140,000 acres that represent some of the East Coast’s only specially-protected <a href="http://www.fs.usda.gov/wps/portal/fsinternet/detail/gwj/specialplaces/?cid=stelprdb5312424">wilderness land</a>. Because it’s within a few hours’ drive for many urban residents, the George Washington national forest is one of the park system’s most visited forests.</p>
<p>The ecology in these national forests is distinctly diverse and precious. The 2-million acre forrest hosts no less than 53 threatened or endangered plant and animal species. There are iconic and pollution-sensitive animals like otters, eastern bobcats, and the endangered <a href="http://www.fws.gov/midwest/endangered/mammals/inba/">Indiana Bat</a> – and even <a href="http://http://www.btcent.com/CougarQuest.htm">reported sightings</a> of cougars, officially declared “extirpated” in the east by the Department of the Interior over a century ago. Over a <a href="http://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/gwj/learning/nature-science/?cid=fsbdev3_000458#Hawk-Like%20Birds:">dozen different</a> eagle and hawk species, including the bald eagle, migrate south each year along the George Washington forest’s ridgelines.</p>
<p>Federal researchers say that fracking puts wildlife at risk. “Hydraulic fracturing fluids are believed to be the cause of the widespread death or distress of aquatic species in Kentucky's Acorn Fork, after spilling from nearby natural gas well sites,” federal researchers from the <span class="caps">U.S.</span> Geological Survey and the <span class="caps">U.S.</span> Fish and Wildlife Service <a href="http://www.eaglehill.us/SENAonline/articles/SENA-sp-4/18-Papoulias.shtml">wrote</a> this month, describing peer-reviewed research they recently published in the journal Southeastern Naturalist. “Our study is a precautionary tale of how entire populations could be put at risk even with small-scale fluid spills,” <a href="http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=3677#.Ui5Ezn9KYg8">added</a> Diana Papoulias, the study's lead author. Another report released this month <a href="http://www.environmentvirginia.org/reports/vae/fracking-numbers">concluded</a> that 360,000 acres of land nationwide have been directly damaged by fracking.</p>
<p>Conventional oil and gas extraction was technically already allowed in the George Washington national forest. But the 12,000 acres currently leased by oil companies in the forest were never drilled because permits were difficult to obtain. Leasing public lands is more common out West than on the East coast, and nationwide, roughly 92,000 oil and gas wells currently produce about 13 percent of American natural-gas production and 5 percent of domestic oil production.</p>
<p>The opposition from several federal agencies to drilling in the forrest is especially noteworthy. The <span class="caps">E.P.</span>A., which has found itself under fire from environmentalists who say the agency <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/08/05/censored-epa-pennsylvania-fracking-water-contamination-presentation-published-first-time">buried reports</a> on fracking contamination, supports a ban on horizontal drilling in the George Washington, as does the National Park Service.</p>
<p>Earlier this year, the Army Corps of Engineers took a pro-drilling stance by <a href="http://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2013/03/28/u-s-army-corps-okays-controversial-pipeline-project/">approving</a> a controversial pipeline that would cross protected wetlands and exceptional value streams and rivers in the Delaware watershed to deliver Marcellus shale gas to East Coast markets. But the Corps, which operates the Washington Aqueduct, the source of drinking water for <span class="caps">D.C.</span> and surrounding counties, has drawn the line on fracking in this forest.</p>
<p><span class="dquo">“</span>Although studies on the technique are still needed in order to fully understand the potential impacts on drinking water,” Thomas Jacobus, general manager of the Washington Aqueduct, wrote in <a href="http://www.svnva.org/wp-content/uploads/fairfax-wash-aquaduct-gwnf-comments.pdf">public comments</a> supporting with the ban filed with the Forest Service. He added: “enough study has been done and information has been published to give us great cause of concern about the potential for degradation of the quality of our raw water supply as well as impact to the quantity of supply.”</p>
<p>Roughly 2,300 miles of relatively pristine perennial streams run through the George Washington forrest. Its rivers and streams ultimately flow into the Chesapeake Bay, but along the way, they form the headwaters of the James and Potomac Rivers.</p>
<p>Local residents are also overwhelming opposed to drilling in the forrest. County commissioners in Rockingham County blocked Marcellus extraction adjoining the forest, citing concerns about water contamination. Of the 53,000 public comments on the proposed horizontal drilling ban, 95 percent support keeping fracking out, including comments filed by local governments representing the cities of Harrisonburg, Lynchburg, Roanoke, and Staunton, and the counties of Augusta, Bath, Botetourt, Rockbridge, Rockingham, and Shenandoah, a review by the Southern Environmental Law Center found.</p>
<p>If the Forest Service backs away from the ban, roughly 95 percent of the forest will be available for oil and gas exploration and fracking, local environmental advocates say. The five-acre wellpads, access roads, and pipelines could create fissures across the woods, disrupting animal habitat and bringing run-off, truck traffic and the danger of chemical spills far from outside observer’s eyes. Spills in in the forest could also pollute the drinking water for millions of residents of Washington <span class="caps">D.C.</span> and neighboring communities.</p>
<p>Industry officials emphasize that they think it is only fair to keep options open. Dusty Horwitt, a senior analyst for Earthworks, a nonprofit environmental group, countered that some options are not worth keeping on the table.</p>
<p><span class="dquo">“</span>Why would the Forest Service gamble with the drinking water of more than 4 million people?” he <a href="http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-09-07/national/41854799_1_george-washington-national-forest-hydraulic-fracturing-drinking-water/2">asked</a>.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:11px;">Photo Cred<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">it: </span></span><span style="font-size:11px;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">View of the Appalachians from the boulder-covered slopes of Duncan Knob, George Washington National Forest, Virginia via <a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&amp;search_source=search_form&amp;search_tracking_id=8OP4XXcKu2Juexyo7iLKWQ&amp;version=llv1&amp;anyorall=all&amp;safesearch=1&amp;searchterm=george+washington+national+forest&amp;search_group=&amp;orient=&amp;search_cat=&amp;searchtermx=&amp;photographer_name=&amp;people_gender=&amp;people_age=&amp;people_ethnicity=&amp;people_number=&amp;commercial_ok=&amp;color=&amp;show_color_wheel=1#id=150126458&amp;src=pIxyMuv2gDmpD2JMAcfIHA-1-5">Shutterstock</a>. </span></span></p>
</div></div></div><!-- iCopyright Horizontal Tag -->
<div class="icopyright-article-tools-horizontal icopyright-article-tools-left">
<script type="text/javascript">
var icx_publication_id = 14813;
var icx_content_id = '7453';
</script>
<script type="text/javascript"
src="http://license.icopyright.net/rights/js/horz-toolbar.js"></script>
<noscript>
<a class="icopyright-article-tools-noscript"
href="http://license.icopyright.net/3.14813?icx_id=7453"
target="_blank"
title="Main menu of all reuse options">
<img height="25" width="27" border="0" align="bottom"
alt="[Reuse options]"
src="http://license.icopyright.net/images/icopy-w.png"/>
Click here for reuse options!
</a>
</noscript>
</div>
<!-- iCopyright Tag -->
<div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-14 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5565">shale gas</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5137">hydraulic fracturing</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/1106">Congress</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/2702">obama</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/epa">EPA</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/9356">Army Corps of Engineers</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13062">national park service</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6843">wastewater</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11834">spills</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5421">contamination</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6019">drinking water</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13647">national forests</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13648">George Washington National Forest</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7277">shale oil</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5401">Marcellus shale</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/8488">radioactivity</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13649">drilling ban</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/8727">horizontal drilling</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13650">HVHF</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13651">bald eagles</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13652">cougars</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13653">bobcats</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13654">otters</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13655">Acorn Fork</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10521">Endangered Species</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/3043">threatened species</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10357">habitat</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10955">Wilderness</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13656">well pads</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13657">access roads</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13658">truck traffic</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/12653">Public Lands</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13659">wildlife preservation</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10333">Earthworks</a></div></div></div>Fri, 18 Oct 2013 14:41:12 +0000Sharon Kelly7453 at http://www.desmogblog.comKalamazoo Spill Anniversary Raises Concerns About Line 9 Pipeline Integrityhttp://www.desmogblog.com/2013/07/29/kalamazoo-spill-anniversary-raises-concerns-about-line-9-pipeline-integrity
<div class="field field-name-field-bimage field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/styles/blog_teaser/public/blogimages/Submerged-Oil-Recovery-Utilizing-Stingers.jpg?itok=n3oQcqgA" width="200" height="150" alt="Kalamazoo oil spill " /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>Last week marked the third anniversary of the largest inland oil spill in <span class="caps">US</span> history. On July 25th, 2010 a 41-year old Enbridge pipeline in Michigan tore open spewing over three million litres of diluted tar sands bitumen or dilbit from Alberta into the <a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20130725/dilbit-disaster-3-years-later-sunken-oil-looming-threat-kalamazoo-river">Kalamazoo River</a> and the surrounding area. Three years later the spill from the Enbridge pipeline known as Line 6B is still being cleaned up with the cost nearing one billion <span class="caps">US</span> dollars.</p>
<div>
The Kalamazoo spill drew wide spread attention to the dangers of shipping dilbit through North America's oil pipeline system. Now environmental organizations and residents of Ontario and Quebec fear Enbridge's plan to ship dilbit from Sarnia, Ontario to Montreal, Quebec through the 37-year old <a href="http://environmentaldefence.ca/issues/tar-sands/line-9">Line 9</a> pipeline. They worry this will put their communities at the centre of the next 'dilbit disaster.'</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
“What happened at Kalamazoo could happen here with Line 9,” says Sabrina Bowman a climate campaigner with <a href="http://environmentaldefence.ca/">Environmental Defence</a> based in Toronto.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
“People in Ontario and Quebec need to know the Line 9 pipeline is very similar in age and design to the ruptured Line 6B in Kalamazoo,” Bowman told DeSmog Canada.</div>
<div>
</div>
<!--break-->
<div>
In a previous article, DeSmog revealed Line 9 and Line 6B share the same <a href="http://www.desmog.ca/2013/06/25/line-9-pipeline-deficiencies-concerns-landowner-associations">design deficiencies</a>. Line 9 is covered in the same outdated protective coating called polyethylene tape or <span class="caps">PE</span>-tape that caused the Kalamazoo spill. <span class="caps">PE</span>-tape became unglued from Line 6B allowing water to corrode the pipe and resulting in the pipeline's rupture. The problems with <span class="caps">PE</span>-tape have been known by the pipeline industry for at least six years. </div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
“The Kalamazoo spill took place in a municipality where 7000 people live. Line 9 on the other hand passes through major urban centres such as Toronto or Montreal where millions live,” says Steven Guilbeault, director of <a href="http://www.equiterre.org/en/about">Equiterre</a> in Montreal.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
Line 9 runs through the most densely populated area of Canada and comes within kilometres of Lake Ontario. It crosses the Ottawa and St. Lawrence rivers. </div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
“A Line 9 dilbit spill could affect tens of thousands of Canadians,” Guilbeault told DeSmog.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
Dilbit spills behave differently than conventional oil spills where bodies of water are involved. Unlike conventional oil, which floats on top of water, <a href="http://thetyee.ca/News/2013/05/23/Bitumen-Does-Not-Float/">dilbit sinks</a>.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
“A conventional oil spill usually involves scooping the oil off the water's surface and maybe some removal of the river banks. Dilbit spills involve dredging rivers,” says Keith Stewart, a climate and energy campaigner with <a href="http://www.greenpeace.org/canada/en/">Greenpeace Canada</a>. </div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
The <span class="caps">US</span> Environmental Protection Agency (<span class="caps">EPA</span>) <a href="http://www.epa.gov/enbridgespill/">ordered Enbridge to dredge</a> three sections of the Kalamazoo River earlier this year citing nearly 720 000 litres of bitumen are still in the riverbed. Upon completion of this round of dredging at the end of this year the <span class="caps">EPA</span> will have to decide if further dredging is necessary or if the remaining bitumen should be left in the river. </div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
“What's worse: having some residual oil in the river, or damaging the river trying to get it out?” said Ralph Dollhopf of the <span class="caps">EPA</span> in the <a href="http://www.freep.com/article/20130623/NEWS06/306230059/Kalamazoo-River-oil-spill">Detroit Free Press</a> last June.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
The dredging operations are a <a href="http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20130715/METRO06/307150023/Cleanup-Kalamazoo-River-oil-spill-nearing-end">new cause of anxiety for local residents </a>affected by the Kalamazoo spill. They claim the site Enbridge selected for its dredging pad - the site where dredged materials from the Kalamazoo will be collected and water and contaminants separated - is too close to local businesses and homes for comfort. Residents fear contaminants may seep into the groundwater or be released into the air during this process. </div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
Local residents are already suffering from 'cleanup fatigue'; weary from the seemingly never-ending remediation of the Kalamazoo spill. Many are concerned they will never get answers as to what the long-term consequences of the spill on their health are.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
“There is very little knowledge about how exposure to the hundreds of chemicals in oil, let alone tar sands oil, affects human health. Many residents face significant anxiety everyday about this unknown. How will their health and their children's health be impacted ten years down the road?” says Sonia Grant, a University of Toronto graduate student conducting field research at 'ground zero' of the Kalamazoo spill. </div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
The thick and viscous bitumen must be diluted with a condensate in order for it to run through pipelines. This <a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20120626/dilbit-diluted-bitumen-enbridge-kalamazoo-river-marshall-michigan-oil-spill-6b-pipeline-epa?page=show">condensate</a> is a chemical cocktail known to carry carcinogens such as benzene. The condensate separates from the bitumen when dilbit comes in contact with water. The bitumen sinks and the condensate forms what amounts to a toxic cloud. Residents suffered from headaches, skin rashes, nausea and breathing problems in the immediate aftermath of the Kalamazoo spill. </div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
The <span class="caps">US</span> Department of Health and Human Services refuses to do a long-term health risks study on those affected by the spill. </div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
“Kalamazoo has shown us dilbit spills are more harmful than conventional oil spills,” Greenpeace Canada's Stewart told DeSmog.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
The National Energy Board (<a href="https://www.neb-one.gc.ca/clf-nsi/rthnb/pplctnsbfrthnb/nbrdgln9brvrsl/nbrdgln9brvrsl-eng.html#s1"><span class="caps">NEB</span></a>) - Canada's independent energy regulator - is still deliberating on Enbridge's proposal to ship dilbit through Line 9. Public hearings will most likely take place in October. The <span class="caps">NEB</span> could make a final decision on Line 9 as early as January 2014.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
Kalamazoo spill commemoration events were held in Sarnia, Kingston and Montreal on the weekend. </div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<span style="font-size:10px;"><em>Image Credit: <a href="http://www.epa.gov/enbridgespill/"><span class="caps">EPA</span></a></em></span></div>
</div></div></div><!-- iCopyright Horizontal Tag -->
<div class="icopyright-article-tools-horizontal icopyright-article-tools-left">
<script type="text/javascript">
var icx_publication_id = 14813;
var icx_content_id = '7365';
</script>
<script type="text/javascript"
src="http://license.icopyright.net/rights/js/horz-toolbar.js"></script>
<noscript>
<a class="icopyright-article-tools-noscript"
href="http://license.icopyright.net/3.14813?icx_id=7365"
target="_blank"
title="Main menu of all reuse options">
<img height="25" width="27" border="0" align="bottom"
alt="[Reuse options]"
src="http://license.icopyright.net/images/icopy-w.png"/>
Click here for reuse options!
</a>
</noscript>
</div>
<!-- iCopyright Tag -->
<div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-14 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/9463">line 9</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/2632">tar sands</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5538">bitumen</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6577">pipelines</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11834">spills</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10225">Kalamazoo</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/4480">Environmental Defence</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/greenpeace">greenpeace</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5311">Equiterre</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10769">Keith Stewart</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13316">Steven Guilbeault</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13317">Sabrina Bowman</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10226">Line 6B</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/1980">Michigan</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13318">montreal sarnia</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6583">crude</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6061">national energy board</a></div></div></div>Tue, 30 Jul 2013 16:55:56 +0000Derek Leahy7365 at http://www.desmogblog.comShale Industry Moves to Ship Fracking Waste via Barge, Threatening Drinking Water Supplieshttp://www.desmogblog.com/2013/02/05/shale-industry-moves-ship-fracking-waste-barge-threatens-drinking-water-supplies
<div class="field field-name-field-bimage field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/styles/blog_teaser/public/blogimages/barge.jpg?itok=4YtG8iNS" width="200" height="150" alt="A large barge passes Pittsburgh. Image from Shutterstock." /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>It was meant to go unnoticed. A small announcement out of a commissioners’ meeting signaled plans to transport <a href="http://desmogblog.com/fracking-the-future/">fracking</a> wastewater by barge down the Ohio River. But it caught the eye of locals and offers a further reminder of why handling and disposal of the wastewater is truly one of the shale drilling industry’s most important and overlooked concerns.<br />
<br />
Construction is already completed at one barging facility in the Marcellus region. A Texas-based company, GreenHunter Water, has <a href="http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20120717005460/en/GreenHunter-Water-Announces-Commencement-Operations-Ohio-River">built</a> a shipping terminal and 70,000-barrel wastewater storage facility on the Ohio River in New Matamoras, Ohio. GreenHunter officials have said they are currently accepting about 3,000 barrels of fracking wastewater per day.<br /><br />
The <span class="caps">U.S.</span> Coast Guard is <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/17/usa-fracking-shipping-idUSL1E8NH7A520121217">now reviewing</a> plans to barge fracking wastewater in the region’s rivers, which serve as the drinking water supplies for over half a million people. <br />
<br />
These plans have raised alarm for many reasons. In the event of a barge accident, the drinking water for major cities like Pittsburgh could be immediately contaminated; the barges themselves could become radioactive because Marcellus shale wastewater carries unusually <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/02/27/us/natural-gas-documents-1.html#document/p410/a9941">high levels of radium</a>; spills or illegal dumping could be harder to detect in water than on land.</p>
<!--break-->
<p><span style="font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">Spills on land are easier to control. When wastewater pipelines cross rivers, wetlands, or streams, state environmental laws may require special precautions be taken in order to protect watersheds. But it is not clear what precautions would be necessary under state or federal law if frack water were to be shipped on the nations’ waterways.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">Proponents of the plan point out that a single barge can carry as much wastewater as 125 trucks, which generally haul 80 to 150 barrels at a time. This means that tailpipe emissions would be slashed. And truck accidents are far more common than barging accidents.</span><br />
<br />
But the barges’ massive size is a double-edged sword; because barges can haul up to 10,000 barrels per trip, a single accident on the waterways could be disastrous.</p>
<p>On January 27, two barges <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-29/oil-spill-cleanup-backs-up-800-barges-along-mississippi.html">crashed into a bridge</a> on the Mississippi river, causing an oil spill from a ruptured fuel tank carrying 80,000 gallons of light sweet crude and leading to a partial shutdown of the lower Mississippi's shipping traffic and a backup of over 800 barges. Cleanup efforts are still <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/01/us-usa-barges-mississippi-idUSBRE91018V20130201">underway</a> on the Mississippi – but while oil can be partly contained with booms or skimmed from the surface of waterways, what happens if fracking wastewater, laced with hundreds of different contaminants, mixes into the rivers people get their drinking water from?<br />
<br />
Much ink has been spilled over the potential for fracking to contaminate underground water supplies through methane migration. <span class="caps">EPA</span> recently was caught <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/01/16/breaking-obama-epa-shut-down-weatherford-tx-shale-gas-water-contamination-study">bowing to pressure</a> from drilling company Range Resources to drop its investigation into this type of aquifer contamination in Texas, for example.<br />
<br />
But there’s been an inordinate amount of focus on the chemicals that go in the well, and far less attention paid to what comes out. After all, what makes this form of drilling unique is the massive amounts of toxic wastewater that fracking produces. This wastewater not only carries the chemicals that drillers deliberately inject into the ground during fracking, but also naturally-occurring elements that are radioactive, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/02/27/us/natural-gas-documents-1.html#annotation/a10143">carcinogenic</a>, or poisonous if consumed.<br />
<br />
When most industries handle toxic waste, they’re subject to strict regulation. Hazardous material handling laws require robust tracking of waste and special handling from cradle to grave. But under federal law, oil and gas drilling waste is <a href="http://epa.gov/osw/nonhaz/industrial/special/oil/oil-gas.pdf">exempt</a> from these rules because it doesn’t count as “hazardous material” under the law. So regulating it is left to the states.<br />
<br />
This means that every time a shale boom arrives in a new region, state officials must climb a steep learning curve to handle the unique problems created by all of this wastewater. Ohio isn’t the only place that’s on the cusp of drilling – in California there's a slowly <a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20120412/fracking-hydraulic-fracturing-marcellus-shale-los-angeles-california-inglewood-oil-field-pxp-water">emerging effort</a> to tap these shale formations, for example.<br />
<br />
Pennsylvania, of course, offers a great example of how not to do it. The back story behind how this state handles their wastewater is exhibit #1 in this cautionary lesson. State regulators have struggled to accurately track what happens to the waste after it leaves the wellpad. And while drillers have at times claimed to be recycling at least 90 percent of the waste, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/02/us/02gas.html?pagewanted=2">independent analysis</a> has found these claims to be overblown.<br />
<br />
It didn’t need to be this way. In 2009, Pennsylvania regulators planned to require a manifest system for frack water, which would require it to be tracked like haz mat. But these plans were scrapped after industry lobbying. Three of the senior regulators who ditched those plans <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/02/us/02gas.html?pagewanted=2">went to work</a> for the oil and gas industry after leaving the Department of Environmental Protection.<br />
<br />
So now, it's entirely possible for truckers to leave the spigots on the back of the tankers open and to make the water disappear on rainy days en route. Fines for illegal dumping are often cheaper than the cost of legal disposal.<br />
<br />
Sometimes haulers have been caught. One Pennsylvania wastewater hauler was <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303410404577468921667124942.html">convicted</a> last year of instructing his employees to leave wastewater valves open, and even <a href="http://www.alternet.org/fracking/toxic-wastewater-dumped-streets-and-rivers-night-gas-profiteers-getting-away-shocking?paging=off">constructed a pipeline</a> that directly carried toxic waste from a garage to a river, and the company owner was sentenced to probation. The state’s lack of a manifest system meant that his employees could get away with simply “loosing” the waste for a long time.<br />
<br />
The details on how this company operated came to light when employees publicly described them. But local residents had long suspected something was amiss. In its first 6 months of operation, <span class="caps">EPA</span>’s “Eyes on Drilling” tip line received roughly <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/02/27/us/natural-gas-documents-1.html#document/p18/a10387">half a dozen complaints</a> about truckers leaving valves open as they drove down back roads.<br />
<br />
On a river: who would notice if a tanker showed up with less than it left with?<br />
<br />
Other dangerous chemicals are currently shipped by barge. But most hazardous material shipments involve single chemicals, while frackwater can be a mix of a wide range of substances, some mundane and others highly toxic, making the Coast Guard’s review more challenging, agency officials have said.<br />
<br />
Another factor that makes fracking brine unique is a different kind of threat: the risk that the barges themselves could be contaminated.<br />
<br />
Marcellus wastewater contains high levels of radium, barium, strontium and other naturally occurring elements. The radium and barium are drawn to each other, and form a flaky substance that pipeline companies call pipe-scale. This <a href="http://www.epa.gov/rpdweb00/tenorm/oilandgas.html#scale">pipe-scale</a> can concentrate enough radium in a single place that the pipes can be a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/02/27/us/natural-gas-documents-1.html#document/p389/a9935">radioactivity exposure threat</a>. Regulators from <span class="caps">EPA</span> and <span class="caps">OSHA</span> have crafted federal rules on how this radioactive pipe should be handled and disposed. But barge-operators will need to contend with these dangers if they decide to haul frackwater.<br />
<br />
Economics factors add to the pressure from drillers to allow the shipments: barge transportation is expected to cost only 10 percent of what it costs to ship frackwater by truck.<br /><br />
Coast Guard officials have said that they expect to conclude their analysis within the next few months.<br />
<br />
But some in the region remain concerned. Pennsylvania State Sen. Jim Ferlo has been vocally objecting to GreenWater Hunter’s plans.<br />
<br />
“[G]iven the controversial nature of barging frack fluid and the fact that it has not been studied or given any final review by regulatory agencies, let alone the broader public,” Sen. Ferlo <a href="http://www.senatorferlo.com/newsroom/in-the-news/senator-ferlo-memo-on-barging-frack-water">wrote</a> in a Dec. 28 memo to the head of the Port of Pittsburgh Commission, “I take great exception to the notion that the formal Commission is in support of this clearly dangerous practice that could adversely affect river quality, commerce and the health of thousands of people.”<br /> </p>
<p>Photo Credit:<em><a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&amp;search_source=search_form&amp;version=llv1&amp;anyorall=all&amp;safesearch=1&amp;searchterm=barge+pittsburgh&amp;search_group=&amp;orient=&amp;search_cat=&amp;searchtermx=&amp;photographer_name=&amp;people_gender=&amp;people_age=&amp;people_ethnicity=&amp;people_number=&amp;commercial_ok=&amp;color=&amp;show_color_wheel=1#id=34096651&amp;src=2fca08b8e00d603465b766363cd36528-1-2"> </a></em><a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&amp;search_source=search_form&amp;version=llv1&amp;anyorall=all&amp;safesearch=1&amp;searchterm=barge+pittsburgh&amp;search_group=&amp;orient=&amp;search_cat=&amp;searchtermx=&amp;photographer_name=&amp;people_gender=&amp;people_age=&amp;people_ethnicity=&amp;people_number=&amp;commercial_ok=&amp;color=&amp;show_color_wheel=1#id=34096651&amp;src=2fca08b8e00d603465b766363cd36528-1-2"><span style="font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">Pittsburgh riverfront with large barge in motion</span></a><em style="font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;"> from Shutterstock.</em></p>
</div></div></div><!-- iCopyright Horizontal Tag -->
<div class="icopyright-article-tools-horizontal icopyright-article-tools-left">
<script type="text/javascript">
var icx_publication_id = 14813;
var icx_content_id = '6844';
</script>
<script type="text/javascript"
src="http://license.icopyright.net/rights/js/horz-toolbar.js"></script>
<noscript>
<a class="icopyright-article-tools-noscript"
href="http://license.icopyright.net/3.14813?icx_id=6844"
target="_blank"
title="Main menu of all reuse options">
<img height="25" width="27" border="0" align="bottom"
alt="[Reuse options]"
src="http://license.icopyright.net/images/icopy-w.png"/>
Click here for reuse options!
</a>
</noscript>
</div>
<!-- iCopyright Tag -->
<div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-14 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5133">fracking</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6305">oil and gas</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5565">shale gas</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6843">wastewater</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11831">radium</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11832">barges</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7136">Coast Guard</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11833">GreenHunter Water</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11834">spills</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11447">rivers</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7112">brine</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11835">flowback</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11836">Ohio River</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11837">Eyes on Drilling</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/epa">EPA</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5433">Department of Environmental Protection</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6043">jim ferlo</a></div></div></div>Tue, 05 Feb 2013 17:22:09 +0000Sharon Kelly6844 at http://www.desmogblog.com